Donald Thomson

Donald Fergusson Thomson, OBE (26 June 1901 – 12 May 1970) was an Australian anthropologist and ornithologist who was largely responsible for turning the Caledon Bay crisis into a "decisive moment in the history of Aboriginal-European relations". He is remembered as a friend of the Yolngu people, and as a champion of understanding, by non-Indigenous Australians, of the culture and society of Indigenous Australians.

Early life

Thomson studied zoology and botany at the University of Melbourne. He also joined the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU) in 1917 and served it as Press Officer (1923) and as Assistant Editor of its journal the Emu (1924–1925). When he graduated in 1925 he joined the Melbourne Herald as a cadet, also marrying Gladys Coleman in the same year. He then studied for a one-year diploma course in anthropology at the University of Sydney, graduating in 1928, and then set off on an eight-month journey, working with and recording the Indigenous people of Cape York. On his return, he was falsely accused of dishonesty, because of the loss of some funds, which was later traced to fraudulent activity by a staff member of the Australian Research Council. This unhappy episode forever damaged his relationship with other anthropologists at Sydney.