Download PDF - The University of Sydney
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feature<br />
Anne Macintosh with dingoes at Long Reef beach.<br />
On facing page, with her husband in Prague.<br />
All photos courtesy Shellshear Museum.<br />
photography documenting movements in slow motion.<br />
<strong>The</strong> puppies attracted attention whenever they’d<br />
scamper away over Long Reef golf course, and<br />
passers-by asked after their breed with great curiosity.<br />
Mac decided the dingo was not a pest, claiming it was<br />
not as savage and predatory as popularly thought.<br />
He observed its affectionate nature but confirmed<br />
its resistance to domestication. After many decades<br />
<strong>of</strong> research he was able to show that a 3000-yearold<br />
dingo skeleton was no different from a modern<br />
skeleton.<br />
Ann resigned from the department when she<br />
quietly married the charismatic Mac in 1965. By this<br />
time he had taught generations <strong>of</strong> medical students<br />
and was known for never wearing a singlet and<br />
“legendary threats <strong>of</strong> world-wide castigation for any<br />
acts <strong>of</strong> improbity in the dissecting rooms”. He was<br />
considered the leading physical anthropologist in<br />
Australia, and world renowned.<br />
Ann supported his long hours <strong>of</strong> intensive work,<br />
field trips, and their many anthropological friendships;<br />
they encouraged Czech anthropologists to visit <strong>Sydney</strong><br />
at a time when it was difficult to engage cultural<br />
exchange with communist countries. <strong>The</strong>ir married life<br />
was one <strong>of</strong> immense activity, travelling widely, but it<br />
was not to be long. Ann nursed him through pancreatic<br />
cancer which finally claimed him at home in Bellevue<br />
‘Black Mac’ set up an animal house in the basement <strong>of</strong> the Anderson Stuart<br />
building, and bred four generations <strong>of</strong> dingoes. It was Ann’s job to exercise<br />
the puppies on campus before work.<br />
Hill in 1977. <strong>The</strong>y had no children.<br />
After losing her companion, Ann was alone for the<br />
next 35 years. In that time she dedicated herself to the<br />
Department <strong>of</strong> Anatomy, edited and published the<br />
memoirs <strong>of</strong> her grandfather Dr Robert Scot Skirving,<br />
and worked with Mac’s papers. Ann had a strong<br />
personality, and even in her older years was known for<br />
her ‘salty tongue’.<br />
Although formally recognised in 1993 as an<br />
Honorary Fellow and Foremost Benefactor for her<br />
family’s long association with the <strong>University</strong> and her<br />
own generous efforts as a volunteer and advocate, she<br />
shunned publicity and did not give ostentatiously. An<br />
appraisal such as this may very well have gotten her<br />
hackles up.<br />
Giving back to <strong>Sydney</strong> Page 18<br />
SAM mar 2013 21