ABSTRACT
The professional families of the 19th century produced a number of people who went on to make their mark in different fields and on different continents. The Roth family was one such. Today, we are particularly aware of the contributions made to anthropology by two of them, Henry Ling Roth and Walter Edmund Roth. To place Henry and Walter Roth in context, this chapter outlines the diversity of the contributions that members of the Roth family made across a number of fields, ranging from art to public health, and discusses the importance of the contributions made to anthropology, particularly by Walter Roth. Unlike his brother Henry, Walter was dedicated to fieldwork. His contributions to anthropology were significant, both in published data and in the building of collections, yet in Australia these were based on but a few years' research. Without his contributions, our knowledge of Queensland Aboriginal material cultures in the late 19th century would be sparse indeed.
