Walter John Enright (10 March 1874 – 27 September 1949) was an Australian solicitor and amateur anthropologist whose notes on the aborigines of New South Wales made an important contribution to the conservation of their traditions. His friendship with, and unstinting assistance to, the new generation of professional anthropologists working on tribes in New South Wales is still remembered.
Life
Enright was born in West Maitland into a Catholic family, with an Irish background. He grew up among Aboriginal people around the
Port Stephens district. He graduated with honours in geology and French in 1893, Professor
Edgeworth David
Sir Tannatt William Edgeworth David (28 January 1858 – 28 August 1934) was a Welsh Australian geologist and Antarctic explorer. A household name in his lifetime, David's most significant achievements were discovering the major Hunter V ...
was an important early influence from those days until Enright's death. Professionally he qualified as a solicitor and went into practice in
West Maitland
Maitland () is a city in the Lower Hunter Valley of New South Wales, Australia and the seat of Maitland City Council, situated on the Hunter River approximately by road north of Sydney and north-west of Newcastle. It is on the New England ...
. He was a member of numerous learned societies. Building on his familiarity with Port Stephen natives, he developed a more scholarly approach after reading the works of
R. H. Mathews
Robert Hamilton Mathews (1841–1918) was an Australian surveyor and self-taught anthropologist who studied the Aboriginal cultures of Australia, especially those of Victoria, New South Wales and southern Queensland. He was a member of the R ...
, on behalf of whom he carried out extensive work in his particular region of interest.
In the 1930s he introduced himself to
A. P. Elkin
Adolphus Peter Elkin (27 March 1891 – 9 July 1979) was an Anglican clergyman, an influential Australian anthropologist during the mid twentieth century and a proponent of the assimilation of Indigenous Australians.
Early life
Elkin was bor ...
, then at
Morpeth, asking him for help in organising his research, which had been focused on the
Worimi, in terms of anthropological method, since he himself had not the time to acquire the relevant methodologies of analysis. Numerous joint forays into the field followed, as Enright introduced Elkin to informants whom he thought would prove useful. Elkin subsequently published a paper on the Worimi, acknowledging Enright's assistance and wrote a laudatory obituary on the latter's demise.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Enright, Walter John
1874 births
1949 deaths
Amateur anthropologists
Australian anthropologists
Australian solicitors