Frederick David McCarthy

Frederick David McCarthy, (13 August 1906 – 18 November 1997), was a pioneering scholar of Australian archaeology, museology and Aboriginal rock art.[1]

Life and career

McCarthy was one of twins born to an English-Scottish immigrant couple in Petersham in 1906.[2]

McCarthy's first employment, aged 14, was as a library clerk in the Australian Museum in Sydney in 1920, a position his next door neighbor, a carpenter who worked at the museum, tipped him off about. Within 12 years he rose to be Curator of Ethnology,[lower-alpha 1] a position he held until 1964, when he was appointed foundational principal of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.[1] Lacking formal qualifications he then undertook a degree in anthropology at the University of Sydney in 1933 under A. P. Elkin. He graduated with a thesis entitled The material culture of eastern Australia, a study of factors entering into its composition.[3]

It was around this time that he met his future wife, Elsie Bramell, whom he married in 1940. Their marriage led to her resignation, since, at that time, public service regulations did not allow couples to work together in the same department.

In the underfinanced years of the depression McCarthy undertook, together with a volunteer team he organized, to survey at his own expense, and in his free time, numerous prehistoric art galleries, recording and sketching their contents before urban sprawl destroyed extensive remains of Sydney's aboriginal heritage.[1] They would train over the weekends to areas like the Hawkesbury River, around Cowan, Berowra, Mangrove Creek and the Georges River.[3] This resulted in the compilation of a massive manuscript on Sydney's regional indigenous art which, together with his diaries, he left to AIATSIS after his retirement.[4] At his death, he left, unpublished a 900-page manuscript entitled Artists of the sandstone, an ethnographical study of contact with whites in Sydney in 1788.

Recognition of his achievements in both anthropology and archaeology led to an invitation in 1948 to participate in the 1948 American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land. His work with Margaret McArthur at Oenpelli was to lead to a groundbreaking study on time factors in aboriginal women's quest for food.[5][6][3]

A further opportunity for fieldwork came up in 1958 when he obtained a Wenner-Gren Foundation grant to pursue research on aboriginal art in north western Australia. In 1961 he went to the Cape York Peninsula and studied Aboriginal clan dancing at Aurukun. His assiduous investigations resulted in the close description of some 43 totemic dancing events in two large volumes, and the collection of an important number of ornaments used in them.[7]

In private life, McCarthy was a keen sportsman and bushwalker.[8] He retired in 1971[6] and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Sciences from the Australian National University in recognition of his achievements.[7]

Works

McCarthy's output of papers was extensive. He published some 300 articles and books between 1933 and 1988.

  • F. D. McCarthy, Australian Aboriginal Decorative Art, (1938)
  • F. D. McCarthy, Elsie McCarthy, H.V.V. Noone The Stone Implements of Australia (1946)
  • F. D. McCarthy, Australian Aboriginal Rock Art. (1958)

Notes

  1. ↑ He was first appointed as assistant to W.W. Thorpe, who was untrained and never catalogued anything. Thorpe died within a few months and McCarthy assumed the senior role, with a huge backlog of neglected artifacts requiring his taxonomic attention.[2]

Citations

Sources

  • Attenbrow, V. J.; Khan, K. (1994). "FD McCarthy: His Work and Legacy at the Australian Museum". In Sullivan, Marjorie; Brockwell, Sally; Webb, Ann. Archaeology in the North. Darwin: ANU North Australian Research Unit. pp. 5–16.
  • Attenbrow, Val (2008). "Ethnographic and Archaeological Collections by FD McCarthy in the Australian Museum". In Peterson, Nicolas; Allen, Lindy; Hamby, Louise. The Makers and Making of Indigenous Australian Museum Collections. Melbourne University Press Academic Monographs. pp. 472–507. ISBN 978-0-522-85568-5.
  • Khan, Kate (27 May 1993). "Frederick David McCarthy: an appreciation" (PDF). Records of the Australian Museum. Australian Museum: 1–5.
  • McCarthy, F.D.; McArthur, M. (1960). "The food quest and the time factor in Aboriginal economic life". In Mountford, C. P. Records of the American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land 1948. Volume 2. Melbourne University Press. pp. 145–194.
  • Mulvaney, D.J. (1993). Specht, Jim, ed. "Sesqui-centenary to bicentenary: reflections on a museologist" (PDF). Records of the Australian Museum. F.D. McCarthy, Commemorative Papers (Archaeology, Anthropology, Rock Art). Australian Museum. Supplement 17: 17–24.
  • Mulvaney, D.J. (1997). "Frederick David McCarthy (1905-1997)". Aboriginal History. 21: v–vi. JSTOR 24046330.
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