Sione Lātūkefu

Sione Lātūkefu (10 April 1927 – 2 June 1995) was a Tongan academic and historian, and the author of several significant works on Tongan history.

Lātūkefu was born in Kolovai and educated at Tupou College and at Siaʻatoutai Theological College, before attending the University of Queensland, where he studied history and trained as a teacher. He then returned to Tonga to teach at Tupou College, but in 1962 returned to Australia to study at the Australian National University, graduating with a PhD in 1967. His thesis was on Church and state in Tonga : the influence of the Wesleyan Methodist missionaries on the political development of Tonga, 1826-1875.

After failing to find suitable employment in Tonga, he moved to Port Moresby in April 1967 to take up a role as lecturer in social disciplines at the newly-founded University of Papua New Guinea. He worked at the University of Papua New Guinea for 18 years before retiring to Canberra. In 1989, he founded the Tongan History Association to encourage studies of Tongan history. In 1988 he was appointed as principal of Pacific Theological College in Suva, Fiji, where he worked until 1991.

He died in Canberra, Australia on 2 June 1995.