Brian Plomley


Norman James Brian Plomley regarded by some as one of the most respected and scholarly of Australian historians and, until his death, in Launceston, the doyen of Tasmanian Aboriginal scholarship.

Professional background

He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from Sydney University in 1935. He did postgraduate work at Cambridge University in 1936–1937 and obtained his Master of Science degree from the University of Tasmania in 1947. Qualified as an anatomist, throughout a varied academic career he worked in England; and Hobart, Sydney, and Melbourne, Australia, mostly as a lecturer in anatomy. he was Senior Lecturer in Anatomy at the University of Sydney from 1950 to 1960, and subsequently at the University of New South Wales, and University College, London,. He later acquired distinction as an ethnological historian, and from 1974 to 1976, was Senior Associate in Aboriginal and Oceanic Ethnology at the University of Melbourne. Plomley's publications, especially his seminal Friendly Mission, reawakened interest in the study of Tasmanian Aboriginal history.
Plomley was conservative by temperament and a traditional state historian. He established the Plomley Foundation at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston, where he had worked as its director from 1946 to 1950. He donated his collection of books, maps and papers to that museum on his death.

Published works

Books and booklets