Hogbin began his study of anthropology with Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown, who founded the anthropology department at the University of Sydney, and his earliest field work was carried out under Radcliffe-Brown's supervision in Ontong Java, a Polynesian colony in the Solomon Islands. Some of the results were published in his book Law and Order in Polynesia.[1]
He then went to London to work with Bronislaw Malinowski, at whose suggestion he returned to the Solomons, where he stayed in Guadalcanal and afterwards in Malaita. Subsequently, he made an investigation of the people of Wogeo, an island off the north coast of New Guinea. He earned a PhD from the University of London.[1]
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