Gordon H Luce

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Gordon Hannington Luce was a colonial scholar in Burma. He was born on 20 January 1889 and died on 3 May 1979. His outstanding library containing books, manuscripts, maps and photographs - The Luce Collection - was acquired by the National Library of Australia in 1980, as part of its major research collections on Asia.

Luce was the twelfth of thirteen children of the Rev. John James Luce, Vicar of St. Nicholas, Gloucester. He went to Dean Close School, Cheltenham, from which he gained a classical scholarship to Emmanuel College, Cambridge University and in 1911, obtained a first class degree in classics. During the Cambridge years he was a member of the Cambridge Apostles and his circle of friends included Arthur Waley. This gave him the entre to the friendship of such contemporaries as Rupert Brooke, Aldous Huxley, and John Maynard Keynes and other members of the Bloomsbury Group.

In 1912 he came to be appointed Lecturer in English Literature at Government College, Rangoon, later a constituent college of the University of Rangoon. In Rangoon he developed a lasting friendship with the young Pali scholar Pe Maung Tin. In 1915 he married Pe Maung Tin’s sister Ma Tee Tee.

Gordon Luce's studies of Burmese culture resulted in articles contributed to the Journal of the Burma Research Society. He was a prolific author throughout his life and wrote books and articles on a wide variety of subjects relating particularly to Burma's history and languages. such as Chinese Invasions of Burma in the 18th Century, Inscriptions of Burma, The Economic Life of the Early Burman, and An Introduction to the Comparative Study of Karen Languages. His three volume Old Burma - early Pagan, covers the history, art and architecture of Burma and its capital Pagan in the 11th and 12th centuries. Phases of pre-Pagan Burma, on the earlier history of Burma, appeared posthumously. His writings remain authoritative today and are widely cited.

During the Japanese invasion in 1942 he and his wife escaped into India. He returned to Rangoon after the war and remained until 1964, when like other foreigners, he was forced to leave the country. His final fifteen years were spent in Jersey. The high esteem in which he was held by Burmese and Western scholars is reflected in the publication of the two volume work, Essays to G.H. Luce by his colleagues and friends in honour of his seventy-fifth birthday, which appeared in 1966.

[edit] The Luce Collection

The Luce manuscripts cover a wide variety of materials. They are stored at the National Library of Australia in 32 boxes and 22 folios. A broad listing is available. 10 boxes contain general correspondence. There are over 2,000 books in the Luce Collection. While the main focus is Burma, the collection contains materials on the history, languages and cultures of Southeast Asia. All titles have been catalogued onto the NLA's National Bibliographic Database.