LEGGE, Prof John David AO (1921-2016) .jpg)
'Jack' Legge (Pegasus 1965)
Professor 'Jack' Legge, formerly, Foundation Professor of History at Monash University, was a specialist on the political history of modern Indonesia and had written widely on South-East Asian and Indonesian history.
'Jack' Legge was enrolled at the College from 1938 to 1939 after having been at Warrnambool State School. He was the School Dux of 1939 and a member of the Pegasus Committee.
After enlisting for war service on 20 October 1944, he first worked with the Directorate of Research LHQ but then embarked for New Guinea on 29 October 1944 with HQ AMF School of Civil Affairs on detachment to ANGAU. He was subsequently promoted to lieutenant on 8 March 1945 and discharged on 13 December that year. John is a graduate (BA) of Melbourne University and an Oxford PhD. He was a Reader at Melbourne University in 1959. He was appointed to the foundation Chair of History at Monash University in 1960 continuing in that position until his appointment as Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Monash University in 1978. He left the position of Dean and from 1987 to 1993 he became an Executive Member of the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Board (VCAB).
Throughout this period he maintained a keen research interest in South-East Asia. He was chair of the Monash Centre of South East Studies from 1964 to 1986. In 1969-70 he was Director of the Singapore Institute of South East Asian Studies. He was awarded Membership of the Order of Australia on 13 June 1988 for
'Service to Education, particularly in the field of Asian Studies, and to International Relations.' A Collection of his papers is held at the Monash University Archives. His publications include the following:
Sukarno: A Political Biography. 3rd ed Singapore: Archipelago Press, 2003.
The Contingent and the Unseen, in
Indonesia Today. Grayson Lloyd (editors) Singapore Inst of SE Asian Studies, 2000.
Australian Outlook: A History of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1999.
A New Imperialism in the Late 19th Century: Revisiting an Old Debate in Empires, Imperialism and Southeast Asia: Essays in honour of Nicholas Tarling. Brook Barrington (editors). Clayton: Monash Asia Institute, 1997.
The Writing of Southeast Asia History in
The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia. Nicholas Tarling (editors). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
'Jack' Legge died, age 94, on 4 February 2016.
John David Legge was inducted into the Old Geelong Collegians' Association Notables Gallery at Geelong College in 2011.
Sources: Ad Astra 1959; Ad Astra Sep 1969' Jame Affleck. Geelong Collegians at the Second World War p327. Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, 2011; Sydney Morning Herald 5 Feb 2016.