Lester Hiatt

Lester Richard Hiatt (1931–14 February 2008), aka "Les Hiatt", was a scholar of Australian Aboriginal societies who promoted Australian Aboriginal studies within both the academic world and within the wider public for almost 50 years. He is now regarded as having been one of Australia's foremost anthropologists

Hiatt was born in Gilgandra, New South Wales. His father was the son of English immigrants. His father was the son of English immigrants from Gloucestershire and Devonshire. Hiatt's father was a book-keeper who rose to be manager of White Wings Flour Mill. His mother was the daughter of a Gilgandra pastry cook.

He graduated in dentistry at Sydney University in 1952, and, after passing over further studies to qualify as a doctor, -financial considerations ruled that out- he shifted his focus to anthropology. His choice had been influenced by a friendship he had formed with a Sri Lankan student of that topic, Laksiri Jayasuriya, during his undergraduate years at Wesley College. He re-enrolled in an arts course to major in anthropology, studying under A.P. Elkin and Mervyn Meggitt, though John Anderson also became an important influence. In 1955 as he opened a practice in Bourke. In 1952, he first encountered A.R. Radcliffe-Brown's work, in particular the latter's Structure and Function in Primitive Society. (1950) While in Bourke he met and married the first of his three wives, a school teacher Betty Meehan, who came from a notable unionist family with communist sympathies. They moved to Sydney and he graduated in anthropology at Sydney University in 1958. A scholarship took him to study at the Australian National University under John Barnes and Bill Stanner.

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