Donald Clarence Laycock was born in Newcastle, New South Wales. He received a BA (Newcastle), and was the first PhD scholar in linguistics at the Australian National University 1959-1962. Laycock’s PhD thesis on a language group in the Sepik district of Papua New Guinea was published in 1965 as the first book-length publication in the Department's Pacific Linguistics series, of which he later became one of the editors. He was appointed as Research Fellow in the Department of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies from 8 May 1964; Fellow in Anthropology and Sociology on 13 May 1966; Fellow in Linguistics on 8 March 1968 and was appointed to Senior Fellow on 1 July 1969. Laycock held this position until he died in 1989.