Camilla Wedgwood

Wedgwood was born on 25 March 1901 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.[1] Her father was Josiah Wedgwood later the first Baron Wedgwood. Her mother, Ethel Bowen Wedgwood, was the daughter of a Lord Justice of Appeal, Charles Bowen. She was a member of the extensive Wedgwood family.[2] Her parents separated in 1914 and divorced in 1919.[3]

Wedgwood was educated at two private schools: Orme Girls' School in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, and at Bedales School in Steep, Hampshire.[1] She studied at Bedford College, London and at Newnham College, Cambridge.[2] At the University of Cambridge, she studied for both the English and anthropology Tripos.[1] She completed both, leaving with first class honours but no degree (women were not awarded degrees by Cambridge until 1948).[1] She was awarded Master of Arts status by Cambridge in 1927.[2] She studied under Bronisław Malinowski at Bedford College and Alfred Cort Haddon at Cambridge.[1]

After leaving the University of Cambridge, Wedgwood returned to Bedford College as an assistant lecturer in the Department of Social Studies.[1][3] After Arthur Bernard Deacon's death in 1927, she was invited to move to the University of Sydney to replace him as lecturer in anthropology.[1][2] She was also asked by Alfred Radcliffe-Brown to edit Deacon's remaining field notes in preparation for publication.[1] These field notes were published as "Malekula: A Vanishing People in the New Hebrides" in 1934.[4] In 1930, she held a temporary lectureship in the Department of African Life and Languages at the University of Cape Town.[2] From 1930 to 1932, having returned to England, she was a lecturer at the London School of Economics and personal assistant to Bronisław Malinowski.[1][3]

In 1932, Wedgwood was awarded a fellowship by the Australian Research Council to conduct fieldwork on Manam Island off the north coast of Papua New Guinea on the border of modern Madang and East Sepik provinces.[2][3] Also in 1932, she became a Member of Council of the Royal Anthropological Institute.[2] In June 1935, she was appointed principal of The Women's College, University of Sydney.[3] During this time, she became an active member of Sydney high society.[3] She left the appointment in 1944 to join the military.[2]

During World War II, Wedgwood was involved in formulating policy on education and administration in Papua New Guinea.[1] Having renounced her pacifism, she volunteered for the Australian Army Medical Women's Service and was commissioned as a temporary lieutenant colonel in January 1944.[2][3] After two years of service, she was demobilized in 1946.[2]

After the war, Wedgwood took a position at the Australian School of Pacific Administration, which was responsible for training Australian colonial officers and administrators.[3] She continued in this role until her death on 17 May 1955 of lung cancer at Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney.[3]

Wedgwood Close in the Canberra suburb of Chisholm is named in her honor.[5]

Wedgwood was a member of the Religious Society of Friends (the Quakers) and as such was a pacifist. During the Second World War she was the president of the Federal Pacifist Council.[6] However, she was increasingly attracted to Anglicanism during her time in Australia and particularly to the Anglo-Catholic wing of the church. She was received into the Church of England in Australia in 1944.[1]

• Deacon, A. Bernard (1934). Wedgwood, Camilla H. (ed.). Malekula: A Vanishing People in the New Hebrides. London: Routledge.

• Camilla : C.H. Wedgwood 1901–1955, a Life. 1990. By D. Wetherell and C. Carr-Gregg. Kensington, N.S.W. : New South Wales University Press.
• She was Very Cambridge: Camilla Wedgwood and the History of Women in British Anthropology. 1986. By Nancy Lutkehaus. American Ethnologist 13(4):776-98.
• Finding guide for Wedgwood's Papers in the National Library of Australia
• Australian Dictionary of Biography