Firth, Sir Raymond William

Firth, Sir Raymond William, 1901–2002, British social anthropologist, b. Auckland, New Zealand. He was educated at Auckland Univ. and studied with Bronislaw Malinowski at the London School of Economics (Ph.D., 1927). He did much research in the Pacific, focusing chiefly on social organization and economic systems. From 1932 he taught anthropology at the London School of Economics, becoming a full professor in 1944. He retired from teaching in 1968 but continued research and writing. He was knighted in 1973. His works include Economics of the New Zealand Maori (1929, 2d ed. 1959), We, the Tikopia (1936, 2d ed. 1957), Human Types (1938, rev. ed. 1957), Social Change in Tikopia (1959), and Symbols: Public and Private (1973).