APSIG newsletter no. 61: July 2006

From Bloomsbury to Burma : the life of Gordon Luce

Dr Pamela Gutman, Honorary Associate in the Department of Art History and Theory at Sydney University, is currently a Harold White Fellow at the National Library of Australia. She is undertaking research for a biography of Gordon Hannington Luce (1889-1979), whose collection, comprising some 2,000 books, manuscripts, maps and photographs, was acquired by the Library in 1980.

Her Harold White Fellowship presentation on Thursday 22 June outlined Luce's long and distinguished life. He read Classics and English Literature at Cambridge, before being appointed lecturer in English at Government College, Rangoon in 1912. Influenced by a Burmese friend, the scholar Pe Maung Tin, he began his lifelong interest in Burmese culture, especially the art and architecture of the former capital, Pagan.

Dr Gutman outlined Luce's long and distinguished life. Gordon Hannington Luce was born the twelfth child of an Anglican minister in Gloucestershire, England. He read Classics and English Literature at Cambridge, before being appointed lecturer in English at Government College, Rangoon in 1912. Influenced by a Burmese friend, the scholar Pe Maung Tin, he began his lifelong interest in Burmese culture, especially the art and architecture of the former capital, Pagan. In 1915 he married Daw Tee Tee, sister of Pe Maung Tin. After the First World War he was passed over for promotion because the British authorities distrusted his pro-Burmese sympathies. Though he wanted to spend the rest of his life in Burma he was forced to flee twice; in 1942 during the Japanese invasion, and again in 1964, when the military regime expelled foreign residents. His final years were spent on the island of Jersey, where he continued to teach and carry out research. Dr Gutman worked with him on Jersey in 1974.

She mentioned Luce's important contributions in a wide range of fields, including linguistics, ethnography, literature, epigraphy and history. His three volume masterpiece, Old Burma - early Pagan, published in 1969, covers the history, art and architecture of Burma and its capital Pagan in the 11th and 12th centuries.

During her talk, Dr Gutman paid particular tribute to the eminent Burmese librarian and historian, U Thaw Kaung, who was awarded a fellowship by the National Library to improve the listing of the Luce papers.

Dr Gutman will complete her Harold White Fellowship in August. Her biography of Luce will be welcomed by scholars and students of Asian studies, as well as a wider audience interested in the intellectual history of the twentieth century.



Andrew Gosling