Politics was taught at Adelaide long before there was a Politics Department. And, metonymically appropriately, high politics was intimately connected with the prolonged labour which eventually brought the Department into being.

In 1934 Professor G. V. ‘Jerry’ Portus was appointed to the Chair of History and Politics. In his Report on the Department of Political Science and History, Portus noted that in 1935 he added a third-year course in Political Science and an Honours course that covered ‘the constitutional development of the British Commonwealth’ and the ‘evolution of political ideas’. In 1937, following the death of Professor Shann, Portus also undertook to teach Political Science and Economic History in alternate years. In 1947, the course in Political Institutions previously taught in Commercial Studies was transferred to History. Portus reported that in 1948 there were only 25 students taking Political Institutions out of a total of 625 undergraduates enrolled in the Department.

W. G. K. Duncan

Portus retired in 1950. His position was filled by W. G. K. Duncan in the following year. A working class student of exceptional ability, Duncan received his BA from Sydney University in 1924 and his MA in 1926. He won a scholarship which allowed him to complete his PhD under the supervision of Harold Lasky at the London School of Economics in 1930. After a distinguished career in workers' education in Sydney he was appointed by invitation to take up the Chair in Adelaide.