Francis James Gillen was born on 28 October 1855 at Little Para, South Australia, the eldest son of Thomas Gillen and Bridget. He was also known as Frank. He entered the public service in 1867, and was employed as a postal messenger at Clare. He was transferred to Adelaide in 1871 where his duties also included telegraph operation. In 1875, Gillen became involved in the construction of the Australian Overland Telegraph Line, and was stationed at Charlotte Waters telegraph station from 1875-1892. He was appointed the Alice Springs post and telegraph Station Master in 1892. At the time Alice Springs was part of South Australia and Gillen, who by virtue of his office held the collateral positions of Special Magistrate and sub-Protector of Aborigines, was effectively the administrator of central Australia. During his time at Alice Springs he became involved with Aboriginal Australians and in 1894 assisted the Horn Scientific Expedition to Central Australia, soon after which he met Walter Baldwin Spencer. After witnessing and documenting the Engwura festival - a series of public and restricted ceremonies performed by Arrernte people men in 1896 - they worked together to write The Native Tribes of Central Australia. The German anthropologist Moritz von Leonhardi was very much inspired by this publication. Later, together with Carl Strehlow Leonhardi partly opposed Gillen’s and Spencer’s theses. In 1900 Gillen was elected president of the anthropological section of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science held at Melbourne. Gillen was transferred from Alice Springs to Moonta in 1899, but in 1901 he was given leave by the South Australian government to join Spencer in an expedition which took them up to the Gulf of Carpentaria. In this journey, the Arrernte artist Erlikilyika acted as their guide, interpreter and research assistant. Their journey led to the publication of The Northern Tribes of Central Australia. Gillen's final fieldwork endeavour with Spencer was to Peake, South Australia, where they camped for a number of weeks gathering further information on Arabanna people for inclusion on their 1904 publication. Gillen was also listed as a co-author of Spencer's The Arunta published in 1927. Gillen remained at Moonta until July 1908, when he became postmaster at Port Pirie. In that year Spencer was hoping to arrange to go with him to Western Australia, but Gillen's health began to fail and it was not possible. In 1911 he was weakening physically, and he died on 5 June 1912.
, considered the "father of Australian archaeology", described The Native Tribes of Central Australia as one of Australia's most influential books in the history of ideas". Varanus gilleni, a species of Australian monitor lizard commonly known as the pygmy mulga monitor, is named in his honour.
Selected works
Was available in eBooks@Adelaide from 2014 to 2020.
