Academy Fellow

Professor Peter Glow  February 17, 1930 - August 9, 2022

Professor Peter Glow FASSA, BA Psychology University of Melbourne, PhD University College London, and Emeritus Professor of Psychology University of Adelaide, died in Melbourne after a long illness on August 9, 2022, aged 92 years.  

Peter was elected in 1974 to Fellowship of The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in recognition of his international standing as a scholar and teacher in experimental psychology. In 2015 Peter was honoured with Jubilee Fellowship of The Academy, marking his forty years in the Academy. For many years Peter was an active Convenor of the South Australian Branch of The Academy, served on the Executive Committee for 14 years, and was a regular attendee at the Academy’s annual meetings in Canberra. Peter Glow was a highly respected psychologist, scholar, and teacher, and a highly esteemed colleague and friend. 

Peter graduated with a B.A in Psychology (Melbourne) in 1955. He then studied for a PhD in experimental psychology at University College, London, graduating in 1958. Peter was appointed to a Lectureship at the University of Adelaide in 1959. He rose rapidly through the ranks and was appointed to a Personal Chair in 1974.  He continued at Adelaide until 1993 when he retired and was named Professor Emeritus. Peter, with his wife Dr Roslyn Glow OAM (nee Alexander) a clinical psychologist, returned to Melbourne at the end of 1992. They resided in East Melbourne and then a Retirement home in Drummond Place, Carlton. 

Peter’s research interests at the University of Adelaide in experimental psychology encompassed learning, motivation, sensory perception, and physiology. He was especially interested in intrinsic motivation and how we learn to respond and take control of our environment. Together with his colleagues and students at the University of Adelaide Peter investigated behavioural responses to changes in sensory stimulation and reinforcement, including the combined effects of sensory stimuli from multiple modalities. Peter was Associate Editor of the Australian Journal of Psychology under Leon Mann’s editorship.

At the University of Adelaide Peter chaired the Academic Board and for a time was Acting Vice Chancellor. Peter had a keen eye for contemporary Australian art and was an avid collector. He became Deputy Chairman of the Art Gallery of South Australia.  

Peter was born in Berlin in 1930 to Józef and Betty Glowinski. His family fled from Nazi persecution and arrived in Melbourne May 1939, four months before the outbreak of World War 2.  Peter attended St Kilda Primary School, Elwood Central School, and Taylors College. He entered The University of Melbourne in 1948, enrolling in the newly established Department of Psychology headed by Professor Oscar Oeser. He studied part time, supporting himself after his father, a tailor, lost an arm in a car accident. Peter worked in the Law School Library and taught for a year at Hampton High School. At the University of Melbourne he was interested in politics and became an ALP club member. Photographs taken when he was a student show Peter was ruggedly handsome, and he was popular with his fellow students. 

In his last years Peter became increasingly interested in his family roots, the fate of his grandparents during the Holocaust, what happened to his old School, and to the house on Neue Jakob Strasse, Berlin, where the Glowinski family lived before fleeing from Nazi Germany in 1939.  

Peter recalled walking to school on November 10, 1938, the morning after Kristallnacht, when the Nazis torched Jewish shops and synagogues, horrified by the smouldering ruins of the Synagogue adjoining his school. Peter rarely spoke about the virulent antisemitism he witnessed in Berlin because it was too painful, and he never returned to Germany.  

Peter although a secular Jew was proudly Jewish. He was also a very proud Australian. He was grateful for the new life and opportunity given to him and his family and to the many thousands of European Jews who came to Australia as refugees before and after the War. They, like Peter, contributed so much to their new country.   

Peter was caring, kind to the less fortunate, generous in his support and assistance, loved learning and good books, travel, good company and conversation. He was a wonderful family man, a loving husband to Roslyn, dedicated father to Hilary and Andrew, cherished grandfather, and admired father in law. Peter loved life until the end.

*Obituary written by Professor Leon Mann AO FASSA