Australian Dictionary of Biography

Professor Donald W. McElwain, n.d.

© The University of Queensland. Courtesy of the University of Queensland Archives

Donald William McElwain (1915–2000), professor of psychology, was born on 8 May 1915 at Wanganui, New Zealand, eldest of four children of New Zealand-born parents Walter Richard McElwain, engineer, and his wife Ina Catherine, née McColl. Completing his secondary education at Wanganui Technical College, Don won a scholarship to Victoria University College, Wellington, University of New Zealand (BA, 1934; MA, 1935). He studied education and philosophy for his bachelor’s degree and education for his master’s, in which he gained first-class honours. In 1935 he was awarded a New Zealand government postgraduate overseas scholarship, which he took up at University College, London (PhD, 1937). Professor John Flügel and Professor Sir Cyril Burt supervised his research on the emergence of ownership behaviour in children.

Returning to New Zealand, McElwain was employed as a field worker and statistician with the Social Science Research Bureau and as a technical officer with the Census and Statistics Department until 1939 when he was appointed to a lectureship in psychology at the University of Western Australia, under Professor Hugh Fowler. On 14 September that year at the district registrar’s office, Perth, McElwain married Marie Agnes Le Roy (d. 1983), a receptionist and an artist. In World War II he began full-time duty on 20 June 1942 as a captain in the Citizen Military Forces (CMF), transferring to the Australian Imperial Force in December. He took charge of psychology research and development, initially as Fowler’s assistant, in the Directorate of Recruiting and Mobilisation, Allied Land Forces Headquarters, Melbourne. His work included formulating and adapting psychological tests, and studying topics as diverse as morale and interviewing practice. In February 1945 he became deputy assistant director, in the rank of temporary major, with the same duties in the Directorate of Psychology. After being demobilised in March 1946, he continued to serve part time in the CMF, his military career culminating with his appointment as colonel commandant of the Australian Army Psychology Corps (1976–82).

In 1946 McElwain had taken up the post of senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Melbourne, where he was prominent in establishing the department in the absence of the university’s first professor of psychology, Oscar Oeser, and where he was promoted to associate professor in 1952. On 1 November 1955 he was appointed foundation professor of psychology at the University of Queensland. In the days before the Australian Postgraduate Awards scheme, he established a strong program in research and applied psychology. An engaging lecturer, with wide knowledge and experience in both the general and professional work of the discipline, he sought to model for his students what a psychologist (a rare profession at that time) could be. He served as dean of arts from 1972 to 1974.

 McElwain helped pioneer cross-cultural psychology in Australia. At the University of Queensland, he supervised projects investigating the cognitive abilities of the Indigenous peoples of Australia and the Territory of Papua-New Guinea. This work led to the development of the Queensland Test; administered wordlessly, it was an early attempt to reduce the effects of language and cultural differences. With George Kearney, he studied the influence of exposure to non-Indigenous culture on Australian First Nations people’s performance of the test. The investigators found that the average results correlated with the extent of exposure (greater contact, better performance). They also observed, however, that the range of problem-solving ability was much the same irrespective of exposure and similar to that of non-Indigenous samples, indicating that environment is the causative factor in any observed differences in ability between First Nations and non-Indigenous people.

A foundation member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal (and Torres Strait Islander from 1989) Studies in 1962, McElwain chaired (1973–78) its education and psychology panel but promoted all forms of Indigenous scholarship. He had learned at his father’s knee respect for Māori, and he had developed equal regard for Australian First Nations people, their culture, and their way of life, during a research expedition in 1939 with Fowler to the north-west of Western Australia. A potter himself, he admired their art and sought to understand their religion and spirituality. He endorsed the Liberal politician William (Bill) Wentworth’s vision for their advancement and was an early supporter of Indigenous people’s land rights.

In 1981 McElwain was appointed AO. He retired on 2 July 1983. The McElwain building at the university’s St Lucia campus was named for him in 1991. From 1936 to 1944 he had been a member of the British Psychological Society. He chaired (1958–59) its Australian branch, which in 1966 became the Australian Psychological Society. At the general registry office, Brisbane, on 12 May 1986 he married Madge Carden Horan, née McAuliffe, a fellow psychologist.

Stockily built with a penetrating gaze and a formidable reputation as a rugby centre (he had won Blues for the sport from both the University of New Zealand and University College, London), he had an intimidating presence that belied a warm and generous spirit. Final year students would be apprehensive when called by the professor’s secretary to see him in his office, only to find a kind man wanting to offer career advice. A better than average bush carpenter, in his retirement he also enjoyed chess and conversational German, a legacy of his travels as a young man in Europe. He died on 26 June 2000 at Auchenflower and was cremated. His wife survived him, as did the children of his first marriage: his son, Sean, and daughter, Suzanne.