Nigel Oram

Nigel D. Oram was an ethnologist and academic. In 1946, after military service in World War II, he read history at Oxford University. This was followed by a career in the British Colonial Service in East Africa and Uganda, where, in his own words, he had experience of law-and-order problems. In 1961, Oram helped set up the New Guinea Research Unit, Port Moresby, which was an offshoot of the Australian National University. His role was to undertake social research. To facilitate his information gathering, Oram learnt the Motu and Hula languages, and undertook his field work along the coast in a 35-foot long lakatoi canoe. In 1969, he was appointed a fellow at the University of Papua New Guinea, where he remained from 1969 to 1975. Oram returned to Australia where he taught prehistory for nine years at La Trobe University and where, upon his retirement in 1984, he became an honorary senior research fellow. He subsequently continued his research, frequently with the assistance of his daughter Rosemary Joan Oram (later Dobbyn).