AustLit

Historian, Keith Hancock was educated at Melbourne Grammar School, and the University of Melbourne. He then briefly lectured at the University of Western Australia, before gaining a Rhodes Scholarship, which took him to Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1924, with first class honours in Modern History. He subsequently enjoyed a long and distinguished academic career in both Australia and England, and perhaps became best known for his work as Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London in the period 1949-1956. Knighted in 1953, he returned to Australia in 1956 to take up an appointment at the Australian National University, Canberra, where he remained until his retirement in 1965. In his later years he developed an interest in environmentalism and environmental history.