Australian archaeologist (1892–1957)
Vere Gordon Childe (14 April 1892 – 19 October 1957) was an Australian archaeologist who specialised in the study of European prehistory. He spent most of his life in the United Kingdom, working as an academic for the University of Edinburgh and then the Institute of Archaeology, London. He wrote twenty-six books during his career. Initially an early proponent of culture-historical archaeology, he later became the first exponent of Marxist archaeology in the Western world.
Born in Sydney to a middle-class English migrant family, Childe studied classics at the University of Sydney before moving to England to study classical archaeology at the University of Oxford. There, he embraced the socialist movement and campaigned against the First World War, viewing it as a conflict waged by competing imperialists to the detriment of Europe's working class. Returning to Australia in 1917, he was prevented from working in academia because of his socialist activism. Instead, he worked for the Labor Party as the private secretary of the politician John Storey. Growing critical of Labor, he wrote an analysis of their policies and joined the radical labour organisation Industrial Workers of the World. Emigrating to London in 1921, he became librarian of the Royal Anthropological Institute and journeyed across Europe to pursue his research into the continent's prehistory, publishing his findings in academic papers and books. In doing so, he introduced the continental European concept of an archaeological culture—the idea that a recurring assemblage of artefacts demarcates a distinct cultural group—to the British archaeological community.
From 1927 to 1946, he worked as the Abercromby Professor of Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, and then from 1947 to 1957 as the director of the Institute of Archaeology, London. During this period he oversaw the excavation of archaeological sites in Scotland and Northern Ireland, focusing on the society of Neolithic Orkney by excavating the settlement of Skara Brae and the chambered tombs of Maeshowe and Quoyness. In these decades he published prolifically, producing excavation reports, journal articles, and books. With Stuart Piggott and Grahame Clark he co-founded The Prehistoric Society in 1934, becoming its first president. Remaining a committed socialist, he embraced Marxism, and—rejecting culture-historical approaches—used Marxist ideas such as historical materialism as an interpretative framework for archaeological data. He became a sympathiser with the Soviet Union and visited the country on several occasions, although he grew sceptical of Soviet foreign policy following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. His beliefs resulted in him being legally barred from entering the United States, despite receiving repeated invitations to lecture there. Upon retirement, he returned to Australia's Blue Mountains, where he committed suicide.
One of the best-known and most widely cited archaeologists of the twentieth century, Childe became known as the "great synthesizer" for his work integrating regional research with a broader picture of Near Eastern and European prehistory. He was also renowned for his emphasis on the role of revolutionary technological and economic developments in human society, such as the Neolithic Revolution and the Urban Revolution, reflecting the influence of Marxist ideas concerning societal development. Although many of his interpretations have since been discredited, he remains widely respected among archaeologists.
Early life.
Childhood: 1892–1910.
Childe was born on 14 April 1892 in Sydney. He was the only surviving child of the Reverend Stephen Henry Childe (1844–1923) and Harriet Eliza Childe, née Gordon (1853–1910), a middle-class couple of English descent. The son of an Anglican priest, Stephen Childe was ordained into the Church of England in 1867 after gaining a BA from the University of Cambridge. Becoming a teacher, in 1871 he married Mary Ellen Latchford, with whom he had five children. They moved to Australia in 1878, where Mary died. On 22 November 1886 Stephen married Harriet Gordon, an Englishwoman from a wealthy background who had moved to Australia as a child. Her father was Alexander Gordon. Gordon Childe was raised alongside five half-siblings at his father's palatial country house, the Chalet Fontenelle, in the township of Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. Rev. Childe worked as the minister for St. Thomas' Parish, but proved unpopular, arguing with his congregation and taking unscheduled holidays.
A sickly child, Gordon Childe was educated at home for several years, before receiving a private-school education in North Sydney. In 1907, he began attending Sydney Church of England Grammar School, gaining his Junior Matriculation in 1909 and Senior Matriculation in 1910. At school he studied ancient history, French, Greek, Latin, geometry, algebra, and trigonometry, achieving good marks in all subjects, but he was bullied because of his physical appearance and unathletic physique. In July 1910 his mother died; his father soon remarried. Childe's relationship with his father was strained, particularly following his mother's death, and they disagreed on religion and politics: the Reverend was a devout Christian and conservative while his son was an atheist and socialist.
University in Sydney and Oxford: 1911–1917.
Childe studied for a degree in classics at the University of Sydney in 1911; although focusing on written sources, he first came across classical archaeology through the work of the archaeologists Heinrich Schliemann and Arthur Evans. At university, he became an active member of the debating society, at one point arguing that "socialism is desirable". Increasingly interested in socialism, he read the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, as well as those of the philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, whose dialectics heavily influenced Marxist theory. At university, he became a great friend of fellow undergraduate and future judge and politician Herbert Vere Evatt, with whom he remained in lifelong contact. Ending his studies in 1913, Childe graduated the following year with various honours and prizes, including Professor Francis Anderson's prize for philosophy.
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Quote_box/styles.css" / ;
"My Oxford training was in the Classical tradition to which bronzes, terracottas and pottery (at least if painted) were respectable while stone and bone tools were banausic." 
— Gordon Childe, 1957.
Wishing to continue his education, he gained a £200 Cooper Graduate Scholarship in Classics, allowing him to pay the tuition fees at Queen's College, part of the University of Oxford, England. He set sail for Britain aboard the SS "Orsova" in August 1914, shortly after the outbreak of World War I. At Queen's, Childe was entered for a diploma in classical archaeology followed by a Literae Humaniores degree, although he never completed the former. While there, he studied under John Beazley and Arthur Evans, the latter being Childe's supervisor. In 1915, he published his first academic paper, "On the Date and Origin of Minyan Ware", in the "Journal of Hellenic Studies", and the following year produced his B.Litt. thesis, "The Influence of Indo-Europeans in Prehistoric Greece", displaying his interest in combining philological and archaeological evidence.
At Oxford he became actively involved with the socialist movement, antagonising the conservative university authorities. Becoming a noted member of the left-wing reformist Oxford University Fabian Society, he was there in 1915 when it changed its name to the Oxford University Socialist Society, following a split from the Fabian Society. His best friend and flatmate was Rajani Palme Dutt, a fervent socialist and Marxist. The pair often got drunk and tested each other's knowledge about classical history late at night. With Britain in the midst of World War I, many British-based socialists refused to enlist in the military despite the government-mandated conscription. They believed the ruling classes of Europe's imperialist nations were waging the war for their own interests at the expense of the working classes; these socialists thought class war was the only conflict they should be concerned with. Dutt was imprisoned for refusing to fight, and Childe campaigned for the release of both him and other socialists and pacifist conscientious objectors. Childe was never required to enlist in the military, most likely due to his poor health and eyesight. His anti-war sentiments concerned the authorities; the intelligence agency MI5 opening a file on him, his mail was intercepted, and he was kept under observation.
Early career in Australia: 1918–1921.
Childe returned to Australia in August 1917. As a known socialist agitator, he was placed under surveillance by the security services, who intercepted his mail. In 1918 he became senior resident tutor at St Andrew's College, Sydney University, joining Sydney's socialist and anti-conscription movement. In Easter 1918 he spoke at the Third Inter-State Peace Conference, an event organised by the Australian Union of Democratic Control for the Avoidance of War, a group opposed to Prime Minister Billy Hughes's plans to introduce conscription. The conference had a prominent socialist emphasis; its report argued that the best hope to end international war was the "abolition of the Capitalist System". News of Childe's participation reached the Principal of St Andrew's College, who forced Childe to resign despite much opposition from staff.
Staff members secured him work as a tutor in ancient history in the Department of Tutorial Classes, but the university chancellor William Cullen feared that he would promote socialism to students and fired him. The leftist community condemned this as an infringement of Childe's civil rights, and the centre-left politicians William McKell and T.J. Smith raised the issue in the Parliament of Australia. Moving to Maryborough, Queensland, in October 1918, Childe took up employment teaching Latin at the Maryborough Boys Grammar School, where his students included P. R. Stephensen. Here, too, his political affiliations became known, and he was subject to an opposition campaign from local conservative groups and the "Maryborough Chronicle", resulting in abuse from some pupils. He soon resigned.
Realising he would be barred from an academic career by the university authorities, Childe sought employment within the leftist movement. In August 1919, he became private secretary and speech writer to the politician John Storey, a prominent member of the centre-left Labor Party then in opposition to New South Wales' Nationalist Party government. Representing the Sydney suburb of Balmain on the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, Storey became state premier in 1920 when Labor achieved electoral victory. Working within the Labor Party allowed Childe greater insight into its workings; the deeper his involvement, the more he became critical of Labor, believing that once in political office they betrayed their socialist ideals and moved to a centrist, pro-capitalist stance. He joined the radical leftist Industrial Workers of the World, which at the time was banned in Australia. In 1921 Storey sent Childe to London to keep the British press updated about developments in New South Wales, but Storey died in December and an ensuing New South Wales election restored a Nationalist government under George Fuller's premiership. Fuller thought Childe's job unnecessary, and in early 1922 terminated his employment.
London and early books: 1922–1926.
Unable to find an academic job in Australia, Childe remained in Britain, renting a room in Bloomsbury, Central London, and spending much time studying at the British Museum and the Royal Anthropological Institute library. An active member of London's socialist movement, he associated with leftists at the 1917 Club in Gerrard Street, Soho. He befriended members of the Marxist Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and contributed to their publication, "Labour Monthly", but had not yet openly embraced Marxism. Having earned a good reputation as a prehistorian, he was invited to other parts of Europe to study prehistoric artefacts. In 1922 he travelled to Vienna to examine unpublished material about the painted Neolithic pottery from Schipenitz, Bukovina, held in the Prehistoric Department of the Natural History Museum; he published his findings in the 1923 volume of the "Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute". Childe used this excursion to visit museums in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, bringing them to the attention of British archaeologists in a 1922 article in "Man". After returning to London, in 1922 Childe became a private secretary for three Members of Parliament, including John Hope Simpson and Frank Gray, both members of the centre-left Liberal Party. Supplementing this income, Childe worked as a translator for the publishers Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner &amp; Co. and occasionally lectured in prehistory at the London School of Economics.
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Quote_box/styles.css" / ;
"As the [Australian] Labour Party, starting with a band of inspired Socialists, degenerated into a vast machine for capturing political power, but did not know how to use that political power except for the profit of individuals; so the [One Big Union] will, in all likelihood, become just a gigantic apparatus for the glorification of a few bosses. Such is the history of all Labour organizations in Australia,