Aquinas, Dalmore and Aquinas

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1950s, 1980s, Aquinas, Dalmore, Dominican Hall

 

Taken from the Aquinas building site in the 1950s, this photograph shows part of its fabulous view over campus and city. Image courtesy of Aquinas College.

Aquinas College is yet another part of the university which marks a milestone this year: it opened 60 years ago, in 1954. It hasn’t been open for 60 continuous years, though; strictly speaking, this is its 54th year as a residential college. In 1948, with a surge in student numbers in the wake of World War II, there was a growing need for student accommodation. The Catholic Bishop of Dunedin, James Whyte, wrote to the Dominican Order in Australia, asking if they might do something about “the crying need in Dunedin of a hostel for the Catholic students who come here to the Medical School.” The Dominican Sisters had opened Dominican Hall, which catered for women students, in 1946, but there was no similar facility for men. The churches were heavily involved in providing accommodation for Otago students. The Anglicans built Selwyn College (opened 1893) and the Presbyterians Knox (1909) and St Margaret’s (1911). Their founders wanted to promote education, meet an obvious community need, and provide pastoral care to their young people. Though the colleges were open to students of all denominations and none, the Catholic Church naturally hoped to provide a facility which would keep its student members under its own wing.

In response to the Bishop’s request, in 1949 Fathers Leo McArdle and Denis Crowley arrived in Dunedin to take over Sacred Heart Parish in North East Valley and begin planning the new college. The Dominican Sisters, who had been providing Catholic education in Dunedin since 1871, donated land adjacent to their Santa Sabina Convent for the new project. Located at the top of a steep hill, it had expansive views over the city and directly across North East Valley to Knox College (Knox and Aquinas residents sometimes howled at one another across the valley and became natural rivals in student hijinks). The Dominican Fathers raised funds through public subscriptions, a bank loan and a government subsidy, and building commenced in 1951. The design was an early project of renowned Dunedin architect Ted McCoy; it won him the New Zealand Institute of Architect’s gold medal.

An early view of the building. Image courtesy of Aquinas College.

In 1954 the first residents moved into Aquinas Hall, named in honour of the great medieval theologian St Thomas Aquinas, the most famed of Dominican friars. The 72 pioneering residents – all men – included many medical and dental students, but also a variety of others, including physical education and teachers’ college students; about two-thirds were Catholic. Fathers Bernard Curran and Ambrose Loughnan and Brothers Martin Keogh and Peter O’Hearn joined Father McArdle to form the college’s first Dominican community; the death of founder McArdle late in 1954 was a great loss to Aquinas. In keeping with the scholarly goals of the college, and of the Dominican order, the residents had a large library and tutorial rooms as well as their common rooms and chapel. Early residents hold fond memories of the friars and of life at Aquinas; they quickly developed into a close community and indulged in all the usual student activities and pranks (including stealing all of Knox’s cutlery).

The 1966 residents of Second Floor North pose for the Aquinas magazine, ‘Veritas’. Image courtesy of Aquinas College.

Aquinas flourished through the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, but in 1980 it was in trouble. The problem was not peculiar to Aquinas; that year the Vice-Chancellor reported about 100 vacancies in Otago residential colleges. The university roll had increased a little, but would actually decline in 1981 and further in 1982; to aggravate the situation in Dunedin, an increasing number of students were now based at the Christchurch and Wellington clinical schools, and the teachers’ college intake had dropped. The days when many students stayed in a college for their entire degree had gone, and more and more were now going flatting after a year or two. There was simply less demand for college accommodation. The Dominican Sisters stopped offering student residence at Dominican Hall in 1978; at the end of 1980 the Dominican Friars closed Aquinas with much regret, as they could not afford to keep it open. They sold the building to the Elim Church and part became a backpackers’ hostel for some years.

By the mid-1980s the University of Otago roll had begun to rise again, and from the late 1980s it boomed. The university was desperate to find accommodation for first year students. In 1984 it opened a ‘temporary’ residential college – Helensburgh House – in the Wakari Hospital nurses’ home (it was to survive until the university instead secured in 1992 the former maternity hospital which became Hayward College). The former Aquinas Hall – purpose-built as a residential college – was clearly ideal for the university’s purposes and it managed to purchase the building from Elim Church and open it under a new name – Dalmore House – in 1988. Seventy-three brave students and warden Reywa Clough moved into the run-down facilities, which were slowly upgraded. At the end of the year the university managed to secure the lease of the neighbouring former Santa Sabina Convent, which became an extension of Dalmore and home to a further twenty or so residents. Today the expanded and much improved facilities are home to 165 residents. The former chapel is now a gymnasium, but the Catholic heritage of the college was marked in 1996 when, with the permission of the Dominicans, it was renamed Aquinas.

Do you have any memories to share of Aquinas/Dalmore/Aquinas?

Off the starting blocks for physical education

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1940s, 1950s, 1960s, physical education

Physical education students practising sling ball, year unknown. Photograph courtesy of the Hocken Collections, P.A. Smithells papers, MS-1001/222, S14-562c.

Much like the Department of Geography, the School of Physical Education was created in the 1940s to meet the demand for well-educated teachers. Early twentieth century educational authorities promoted physical training in schools, believing that healthy bodies created healthy minds. Compulsory physical education would, they suggested, prepare children to become better citizens. It wasn’t only educators that saw its value, though. Charles Hercus, who was Dean of the Otago Medical School and Professor of Public Health, was an early advocate of university education in physical education, seeing it as an important aspect of promoting the good health of the nation. In the late 1930s, he and the University of Otago authorities began the process of getting approval from the University of New Zealand for a degree in physical education, but the war held matters up. Auckland, too, liked the idea of beginning a diploma in physical education.

Matters became more urgent after the introduction of a new secondary school curriculum in 1946 – this made phys ed a compulsory subject for all secondary pupils. Earlier plans for a degree were put aside, and instead Otago obtained approval to offer a three-year diploma in physical education. This would give more flexibility and freedom to the university in moulding the course, and hopefully it would soon become well-accepted, just like the Associateship of the Otago School of Mines, which had a very good international reputation.

In 1947 Otago appointed the remarkable Philip Smithells as first director of the School of Physical Education, along with two other staff, Peter Robertson and Emmy Bellwood. Smithells – commonly known as PAS (from his initials) – was a Cambridge graduate who migrated to New Zealand in 1939 to become the national Department of Education’s Superintendent of Physical Education. He used his considerable expertise and skills to establish a respected course at the University of Otago, remaining director of the programme until his retirement in 1974.

Philip Smithells, affectionately known as PAS, teaching in the School of Physical Education, year unknown. Photograph courtesy of the Hocken Collections, P.A. Smithells papers, MS-1001/217, S14-562a.

Otago’s first class of 30 physical education students – known as the “guinea pigs” – began their course in 1948. Some of their courses were taken in other university departments: chemistry, physics, anatomy, physiology, education, and food values (in home science). But the school itself taught a wide range of subjects, including both practical and theoretical studies: physical education, pedagogy, gymnastics, games, athletics, aquatics, recreation, dance and health education. Classes were based at the old Training College building at 655 Cumberland Street and its gym nextdoor – these buildings are still part of the much expanded school today. Student numbers grew slowly, first exceeding 100 in total in 1961. From the early 1950s, outdoor recreation was taught at the Trotter’s Gorge Hut.

Most early students went on to careers as teachers. In 1967 Smithells, looking back at the school’s first twenty years, noted that 400 people had gained Diplomas in Physical Education, with 90% starting their professional lives as secondary school teachers. The generous bursaries and studentships offered to people training as teachers in that period were largely responsible for this. The wider range of careers open to today’s graduates is reflected in the school’s current name – the School of Physical Education, Sport and Exercise Sciences. But some early students did branch out from teaching: Smithells reported that former Otago students worked in child welfare institutions, mental hospitals and teachers’ colleges, including some now in senior management positions. A large number of women graduates who had married “work in their local communities in corrective work, work with older women and in modern dance.” Other early graduates had gone on to further education, with 30 obtaining masters degrees (and another 12 in progress); 7 had completed doctorates in the USA and Canada with 8 others in progress. Though there were, as yet, no postgraduate physical education courses at Otago, some staff and students had carried out research activities, assisted by “a well equipped exercise physiology laboratory, a partially equipped biomechanics laboratory, and a library in which both the book and serial collection is superior to any in the Southern Hemisphere.” A clinic offering individual physical education to children referred by their doctors provided important experience for students, as well as a useful service to the community; by 1967 it had treated about 500 children with special needs relating to “skill, courage, tenseness, motor control or perception.”

The School of Physical Education’s first class – the “guinea pigs” – practising a Kentucky running set, 1948. Photograph courtesy of the Hocken Collections, P.A. Smithells papers, MS-1001/222, S14-562b.

There is lots of interesting material about the early years of physical education at Otago, and further afield, in the papers of Philip Smithells, held at the Hocken Collections. These include many wonderful photographs, like the ones reproduced here – there are some particularly good photographs of modern dance and gymnastics. It seems we can hold Smithells partly responsible, too, for all those folk dancing classes at school! Do you have any memories to share of the early years of the School of Physical Education? And can you identify any of the students in the photographs, or help date them?

 

A royal walkabout

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1970s, Critic, royalty

The Queen chats to students in the university library. In the background the Duke of Edinburgh does likewise. Photograph courtesy of the Hocken Collections, University of Otago Registry records, AG-180-072/021, S14-561c.

The University of Otago has hosted numerous visiting dignitaries over the years, from a Thai princess to Samoan and Malaysian cabinet ministers to the Crown Prince of Brunei. But the biggest occasion for celebrity star-power was undoubtedly 18 March 1970, when the Queen visited the Dunedin campus, bringing with her the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles and Princess Anne. The University Photographic Unit was on hand to record proceedings – these photographs come from a wonderful album they put together, now held in the archives of the University Registry at the Hocken.

The 1970 royal tour of New Zealand did not attract the remarkable fervour of the Queen’s visit of 1952-1953, but it did bring up some milestones. This was the first time the royals completed informal “walkabouts” to meet the public, and it was the first visit of Prince Charles (then 21 years old) and Princess Anne (19 years) to this country. The royals fitted several activities into their one day in Dunedin. After an official civic welcome at the Oval, attended by more than 20,000 people, they visited patients at Wakari Hospital. Charles and Anne then attended a “Young People’s Civic Luncheon” at the University Union. A couple of hours later their parents joined them for a tour of the university. In the evening the family attended a NZBC symphony orchestra concert, which featured an acclaimed performance from the young soprano Kiri Te Kanawa. Though nobody informed the audience, the royals and organisers were put on edge that evening by a couple of anonymous threats of bombs at the Town Hall.

Prince Charles and Princess Anne meet Otago students in the University Union. Accompanying the princess is Laraine Waters, the “lady vice-president” of OUSA. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, University of Otago Registry records, AG-180-072/021, S14-561b.

Students of 1970 evidently had mixed feelings about royalty: their welcome was “restrained but warm” reported the Evening Star. One group brandished a Welsh flag that attracted the attention of the young Prince of Wales and his father; but the most vocal students were the group of 60 or so who performed a haka on the balconies of the top floors of Unicol and sang various songs, including the national anthem and “God save the Queen,” along with the less respectful “Why was she born so beautiful” and “Why are we waiting”. Critic reported the visit in its usual cynical style: Princess Anne “hid a nice-looking figure in lousy clothes” (described in the Otago Daily Times as “a brown dress and crescent-shaped hat of gathered aqua chiffon banded with brown”); while Prince Charles was mocked for reportedly informing an anthropology student that “there isn’t any pre-history in New Zealand.”

After chatting with students in the Union, the royals toured various parts of the campus, including the library, chemistry labs in the Interim Science Building, and design and foods labs at the Home Science School. Everywhere they went, they engaged people in conversation about their studies; international students fielded questions about adapting to life in New Zealand. Students reported the visitors to be friendly and easy to talk with. The Queen was, claimed the Evening Star, “particularly impressed” with the fraction collector being used by Peter Elder in the chemistry research lab. Judging by the photo below, I’m not convinced that she was equally “impressed” with the university’s gift of its recently published centenary history, presented in the Council Chamber, where she met senior university staff and council members. I wonder if she ever read it?

University Chancellor Hubert Ryburn presented to the Queen a specially-bound copy of the centenary history and centenary record. Looking on is his wife Jocelyn Ryburn, Warden of St Margaret’s College. Vice-Chancellor Robin Williams stands partially obscured next to the Queen. University of Otago Registry records, AG-180-072/021, S14-561d.

Do you remember the royal tour of 1970? Can you help identify any of the students in these photographs?

The legal night school

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1870s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, law

In this image taken from the Dunedin Railway Station looking up Stuart Street, c.1905, the court buildings feature at the front left. Until 1966 the University of Otago law classes took place here, or in the chambers of the part-time lecturers. Image by Muir and Moodie, courtesy of Te Papa Tongarewa, reference C.012290.

Today Otago’s law school offers a substantial full-time programme, located at the heart of the Dunedin campus, in the Richardson Building. But it hasn’t always been that way. Law is one of Otago’s oldest subjects – it was first taught in 1873, the third year that the university provided lectures – but for many decades it was a precarious and part-time enterprise. Qualifying as a lawyer in the nineteenth century involved being articled to a trained lawyer and passing the required exams; university classes supplemented this apprenticeship system.

Otago’s first law lecturer, future Premier and Chief Justice Robert Stout. Photographed in 1885. Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, reference 1/2-098553-F.

Otago’s first law lecturer was the impressive Robert Stout, after whom the law library is named. He arrived in Otago from Shetland in 1863 and taught school for some years before training as a lawyer. He was one of the University of Otago’s founding students, undertaking courses in mental and moral science and political economy. In 1873 he offered lectures in common law to a class of 18 students – a number which would not be equalled again for some decades. Stout resigned in 1875 when he was elected to the House of Representatives. He went on to a distinguished political career, including 3 years as Premier of New Zealand and 26 years as Chief Justice. He also played a major role in New Zealand university administration and was a key figure in founding Victoria University of Wellington.

A series of local lawyers succeeded Stout as part-time law lecturer, teaching specialist papers for the LLB degree, for which the University of New Zealand provided regulations from 1877. There wasn’t much incentive to complete a degree, which wasn’t necessary for qualification as a solicitor or barrister, so classes remained tiny. Law students were generally employed in local law firms, with classes taking place after hours in their teachers’ offices or at the Supreme Court building. They studied in the Otago District Law Society’s library.

In 1901, with few law students and a financial crisis, the University of Otago’s council decided to “terminate the appointments of Dr. W. D. Milne, Lecturer on Jurisprudence, and Mr. A. R. Barclay, M.H.R., Lecturer on Constitutional History and Law, and to abstain for the present from teaching these subjects at the University.” In 1905 the District Law Society convinced the university to begin legal classes again, with the lecturers funded purely from student fees, and three years later the first full-time lecturer in law was appointed. Unfortunately for Otago, James Garrow only stayed three years, leaving to become foundation Professor of Law in Wellington. After another interval of a couple of years, the university reverted to its previous custom of appointing local practitioners as part-time lecturers, this time with the expense heavily subsidised by the District Law Society. In 1913, when the Faculty of Law was created, it boasted 47 students, probably all part-time. Numbers waxed and waned over the next four decades, reaching as high as 91 in 1928, and as low as 8 in 1942.

In 1959, more than 80 years after first offering lectures in law, Otago finally appointed its first full-time Professor of Law, Frank Guest, who also served as dean to a faculty of 14 staff and 99 students. Classes grew too large for the facilities in the court building and in 1966, with student numbers about to hit 200 for the first time, the law school moved onto the main campus, taking over the former registry building (previously the first Dental School, now the Staff Club). The decades of the part-time “night school” came to an end and law became, for most students, a full-time field of study. Prospective lawyers could complete a LLB degree in four years, followed by a year of study to complete their professional qualification. For decades law students had been somewhat geographically, socially and intellectually isolated from the university, but now they could take a full part in student life.

There have been many changes to the law school since it moved on campus in the 1960s, but I’ll save those for a future post. Do you have any memories to share of law at Otago in its “night school” years?