Alfred C. (Alfred Cort) Haddon

Born in 1855, Alfred Cort Haddon first built his career in zoology before a research trip to the Torres Strait changed his direction and drew him toward anthropology. He went on to become one of the key figures in British anthropology, remembered for combining fieldwork, photography, and close cultural observation in ways that influenced the discipline for years to come.

Haddon is especially associated with the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits in 1898, a landmark project that brought together detailed studies of language, ritual, social life, and material culture. His work helped preserve important records of Islander life at a time of rapid change, and he also played a major role as a teacher, encouraging later generations of anthropologists.

He died in 1940, but his reputation has lasted because of both his own research and the way he helped shape anthropology as a serious academic subject. Readers interested in the early history of field anthropology often encounter his name as one of the discipline's formative figures.