author
Robert Wood Williamson
1856–1932
A Manchester solicitor who turned to anthropology later in life, he became known for careful studies of kinship, religion, and social organization in Melanesia and Polynesia. His books helped bring detailed Pacific ethnography to a wider English-speaking audience in the early 20th century.
1 Audiobook
The Mafulu: Mountain People of British New Guinea
by Robert Wood Williamson
About the author
Born in Manchester in 1856, he was the son of the noted naturalist William Crawford Williamson. He studied at private schools and Owens College, trained in law at Clement's Inn, and worked as a Manchester solicitor until 1908, when he left legal practice to focus on anthropology.
His anthropological work centered on the peoples of Melanesia and Polynesia. He traveled in British New Guinea and the islands of the western Pacific around 1910–1911, and later published major studies including The Mafulu Mountain People of British New Guinea, The Ways of the South Sea Savage, and The Social and Political Systems of Central Polynesia.
He was also active in scholarly circles, serving as treasurer of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Williamson died on January 12, 1932, remembered as a diligent independent scholar whose writing captured a wide range of Pacific societies at a time of rapid colonial change.