13 Facts About Raymond Firth

Sir Raymond William Firth was an ethnologist from New Zealand.

Raymond Firth was a long serving Professor of Anthropology at London School of Economics, and is considered to have singlehandedly created a form of British economic anthropology.

Raymond Firth was born to Wesley and Marie Raymond Firth in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1901.

Raymond Firth was educated at Auckland Grammar School, and then at Auckland University College, where he graduated in economics in 1921.

Raymond Firth took his economics MA there in 1922 with a 'fieldwork' based research thesis on the Kauri Gum digging industry, then a diploma in social science in 1923.

Raymond Firth took over from Radcliffe-Brown as acting editor of the journal Oceania, and as acting director of the Anthropology Research Committee of the Australian National Research Committee.

Raymond Firth succeeded Malinowski as Professor of Social Anthropology at LSE in 1944, and he remained at the School for the next 24 years.

Raymond Firth was particularly focused on the creation of the university's School of Pacific Studies.

Raymond Firth returned to Tikopia on research visits several times, although as travel and fieldwork requirements became more burdensome he focused on family and kinship relationships in working- and middle-class London.

Raymond Firth died in London a few weeks before his 101st birthday: his father had lived to 104.

Raymond Firth married Rosemary Raymond Firth in 1936; they had one son, Hugh, who was born in 1946.

Raymond Firth was raised a Methodist then later became a humanist and an atheist, a decision influenced by his anthropological studies.

Raymond Firth was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto.