Series 572 - Reverend Dr Arthur Capell's papers

Arthur Capell was born in Sydney on 28 March 1902 and attended North Sydney Boys High School before entering the University of Sydney in 1919 and graduating in 1922. He subsequently taught at several boys schools in the Sydney area and helped prepare Latin and Greek primers. He was ordained in the Anglican Church in 1925 and remained for much of his life a devout parish priest while finding time for teaching and linguistic scholarship. He was a prolific publisher in both the clerical and linguistic fields.

In 1935 Capell began PhD studies at SOAS, University of London, under R. O. Winstedt, which he was awarded in 1937 for his linguistic history of south-eastern Papua. Noted fieldwork included time in the Kimberleys in 1938 with Howard Coate (a local medical worker) to study Australian Aboriginal languages. In 1945, Capell was appointed as a lecturer at the University of Sydney, where he remained until his retirement in 1962, although he continued to publish prolifically on Pacific and Australian Aboriginal languages until shortly before his death in 1986.

Capell's linguistic influences came from a number of sources. One of earliest being the English schoolmaster and linguist Sydney Ray, with whom he worked in the 1920s. He was also influenced by the work on Melanesian languages of R.H. Codrington and the work on Oceania of Renward Brandsetter and Otto Dempwolf. As Peter Newton has noted: 'Their pioneering works inspired Capell to formulate his own theories on the genetic relationships between regional languages, the affinity between language and population movements, and suitable methods of modelling earlier language forms.'