Kenneth Wheare

Sir Kenneth Clinton Wheare, CMG, FBA (26 March 1907 – 7 September 1979)^[1] was an Australian academic, who spent most of his career at Oxford University in England.^[2] He was an expert on the constitutions of the British Commonwealth.^[3] He advised constitutional assemblies in former British colonies.^[4]

Sir Kenneth Wheare CMG FBA
Born	26 March 1907
Died	7 September 1979(1979-09-07) (aged 72)
Nationality	Australian
Academic work
Discipline	Political science
Sub-discipline	Government constitutions British Commonwealth
Institutions	Christ Church, Oxford University College, Oxford All Souls College, Oxford Exeter College, Oxford

Early life and family

Wheare was educated at Scotch College, Melbourne^[1] and was later a student at Ormond College, Melbourne University and Oriel College, Oxford, gaining a first class degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and also undertaking postgraduate study. He met his wife Joan (1915–2013) when he was her tutor.^[5] One of their sons is Tom Wheare. Another son is Henry Wheare, the champion British rower who later became a leading intellectual property lawyer in Hong Kong.

Career

In 1934, Wheare was made a university lecturer in colonial history at the University of Oxford, and joined Christ Church, Oxford with a research lectureship. During his four years at Christ Church, he concentrated his research on the effects of the Statute of Westminster 1931 and the first edition of his The Statute of Westminster and Dominion Status was published in 1938. In 1939, he was elected fellow of University College, Oxford to fill the post of tutor in politics that had been vacated by John Maud.^[6]

In 1944, Wheare was elected the first Gladstone Professor of Government at All Souls College, Oxford.^[6] He was Chairman of the Departmental Committee on Children and the Cinema from 1947 to 1950 and chaired a committee to examine film censorship in the United Kingdom.^[1][7] The Wheare committee's findings published in 1950 led to the introduction of a compulsory certificate, X (Explicit Content), allowing only those aged 16 and older to enter.^[7] Another outcome of the Wheare report was the creation of the Children's Film Foundation.^[8]

In 1956, he became Rector of Exeter College, Oxford. A gargoyle of his likeness is carved on the Bodleian Library, visible from the Exeter College Fellows' Garden.^[1]

Wheare was Chairman of the Rhodes Trust (1962–69), President of the British Academy (1967–71), Chancellor of the University of Liverpool from 1972. He was also a Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1964 to 1966.^[9]

In 1948 he had contributed Abraham Lincoln and the United States to the "Teach Yourself History" series.

In June 1973, Wheare was shortlisted for appointment as Governor-General of Australia,^[10] but was overlooked by then-prime minister Gough Whitlam in favour of Sir John Kerr.

Honours

Kenneth Wheare was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1953 and was knighted in 1966.^{[citation needed][1]} In 1952, he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences.^[6] He gave the British Academy's 1974 Master-Mind Lecture.^[11][12]

In 2017, Oxford Brookes University named a newly rebuilt lecture hall after Wheare.^[13]

References

1. Poynter, J. R. "Wheare, Sir Kenneth Clinton (1907–1979)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-522-84459-7. ISSN 1833-7538. OCLC 70677943. Retrieved 14 July 2011.
2. Beloff, Max (2004). "Wheare, Sir Kenneth Clinton (1907–1979) (subscription required)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/31822. Retrieved 9 January 2020. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
3. Markwell, Donald (2016). Constitutional Conventions and the Headship of State: Australian Experience. Connor Court. ISBN 978-1925501155. Appendix 3: Two Constitutional Scholars: Sir Kenneth Wheare and Dr Eugene Forsey.
4. Getachew, Adom (2019). Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination. Princeton University Press. p. 122. doi:10.2307/j.ctv3znwvg. ISBN 978-0-691-17915-5. JSTOR j.ctv3znwvg.
5. "Joan Wheare: Rebel with many causes". Oxford Mail. 7 November 2013. Retrieved 22 March 2015.
6. Marshall, Geoffrey (1982). "Kenneth Clinton Wheare, 1907-1979" (PDF). Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy (67). The British Academy: 490–507. Retrieved 26 May 2024.
7. "Wheare Report, The (1950)". Screenonline. Retrieved 12 November 2022.
8. Roberts, Andrew (9 September 2010). "How the Children's Film Foundation once dominated Saturday morning cinema". The Guardian.
9. "Previous Vice-Chancellors". UK: University of Oxford. Retrieved 14 July 2011.
10. Kelly, Paul (2015). The Dismissal: A Groundbreaking New History. Melbourne: Penguin Random House Australia. p. 69. ISBN 9781760142032.
11. "Master-Mind Lectures". The British Academy.
12. Wheare, K. C. (1975). "Walter Bagehot" (PDF). Proceedings of the British Academy. 60: 173–197.
13. "New hall named in honour of Sir Kenneth Wheare". UK: Oxford Brookes University. 23 June 2017. Retrieved 9 January 2019.

Academic offices
Preceded by Eric Arthur Barber	Rector of Exeter College, Oxford 1956–1972	Succeeded by Greig Barr
Preceded by Walter Fraser Oakeshott	Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University 1964–1966	Succeeded by Kenneth Turpin