The following abridged biographical note was paraphased from the NLA guide to MS 9580.

Cecil Hackett attended St Peter's College and Queen's School, Adelaide and graduated from University of Adelaide MB BS in 1927. He spent a year at the Adelaide General Hospital before travelling to study at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine from 1929 - 1930.

Hackett was a member of the University of Adelaide's first anthropological trip to Central Australia in 1927. In 1933 he was invited to accompany Norman Tindale (AA 338) on a two month expedition to the Mann and Musgrave Ranges where they documented the movements and social structure of the Pitjantjatjara people. In 1934 he received a grant from the Sheridan Research Fund from the University of Adelaide to again visit Central Australia.

Hackett served a period with the Colonial Service in Shanghai in 1932 and in 1935 he worked at the Anatomy Department of Cambridge University. In 1937 he received a Senior Research Fellowship from the British Medical Research Council Fellowship to study tropical medicine. Completing his research in Uganda in 1940 Hackett joined the RAF, serving in Sierra Leone, India and Burmah. He was appointed Director of the Wellcome Museum of Medical Science in 1945. Invited to join the World Health Organisation in Geneva in 1954 he became a medical officer in the Venereal Diseases and Treponematoses Section. On his retirment in 1965 he returned to London and continued his studies of treponemal diseases. He produced some 90 published scientific papers and about 30 unpublished reports. Hackett died in London in April 1995.

This collection of photographs, negatives and journals has been collated under known expeditions and trips undertaken by CJ Hackett.

• 1925 - 1926: Summer Vacation trip Adelaide to Oodnadatta to Alice Springs.

• 1926 - 1927: Macumba Expedition as a member of the Board for Anthropological Research.

• 1929: Hermannsburg, Central Australia as a member of the Board for Anthropological Research.

• 1929: Dunstable, England visit to Bronze Age Round Barrows excavation sites

• 1933: Journal - "Letter About an Unknown World or Trip into North Western Australia". Mann and Musgrave Ranges (25 May - 6 Aug) and Ernabella (7 - 24 Aug) Expeditions as a member of the Board for Anthropological Research.

• 1934: Journal - "Another Letter or A Trip Across Australia". University of Adelaide, Sheridan Research Trip sponsored to investigate the medical condition Yaws.

• 1935: Journal - "A Third Letter from Australia via Ooldea, Kalgoorie, Laverton". Warburton Range Expedition as a member of the Board for Anthropological Research. NOTE: This Journal includes the photographs taken while in Ooldea in 1934.