WALTER JOHN ENRIGHT (d.1950)
by David Andrew Roberts
Walter John Enright of Maitland and Dungog was
an enthusiastic student of Aboriginal society, past and present,
undertaking some sixty years of field research in the Newcastle,
lower Hunter and north-coast regions. Educated at the University
of Sydney, graduating with honours in Geology in 1893, Enright
was a solicitor by profession, pursing his amateur anthropological
interests as a private pastime and passion. Enright's first essay
described the Keeparra ceremonies of the Port Stephens Aborigines,
researched with the assistance of R.H. Matthews, published by
the Royal Society of NSW in 1899 (Enright
1899). He later emerged as an important contributor to Australia's
anthropological literature during the first half of the twentieth
century, publishing more than twenty works in respected journals
such as Mankind, Oceania, Science of Man,
and the Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New
South Wales. Many of these publications were outlines and
brief observational notes. His special contribution was in the
assistance he gave to many notable scholars and researchers, including
Robert H. Matthews, A.P. Elkin and the Anthropological Department
of the Australian Museum. He was a member of the Royal Geographical
Society, the Royal Australian Historical Society, the Royal Australian
Ornithologists' Union, the Numismatic Society and the Australian
and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science. Enright
died in 1950.
A list of Enright's publications relevant to
the Newcastle-lake Macquarie district is given in the Bibliography
under E.
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