John La Nauze

John Andrew La Nauze (9 June 1911 – 20 August 1990) was born in Western Australia. Shortly after his fourth birthday, his Mauritian-born father Captain Charles La Nauze was killed by Turkish artillery fire at Silt Spur (southern ANZAC sector) Gallipoli. La Nauze completed degrees in Arts at the University of Western Australia and (as Rhodes Scholar for 1931) at Balliol College, Oxford before joining the Economics Departments at Adelaide (from 1935) and Sydney (1940-49). In 1950 he became Foundation Professor of Economic History in the University of Melbourne, moving to the newly created Ernest Scott Chair on the Department of History in 1956. In 1966 he succeeded Sir Keith Hancock as professor of History in the Institute of Advanced Studies at the Australian National University. On his retirement in 1977 he became the first Professor of Australian Studies at Harvard in 1978. In the Melbourne History Department he introduced courses in Later British History – which he believed essential to an understanding of Australian History — and fostered research in both fields.

His publications included Alfred Deakin:

• A Biography (which won him a D.Litt and the Ernest Scott Prize for 1966)
• The Making of the Australian Constitution (1972).