The Park Street residences

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1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, Aquinas, Dominican Hall, Wesley Hall

Otago has a great collection of residential colleges, some long-established and others quite recent; less well-known are those that flourished briefly but no longer exist. One of the most popular posts on this blog is about Helensburgh House, a ‘temporary’ hall of residence from 1984 to 1991. Today I explore the history of two others that have gone: Dominican Hall and Wesley Hall.

Dominican Hall. It was originally built in the 1880s for Robert Gillies, a businessman and amateur astronomer who included an observatory in the roof and named it Transit House in honour of the Transit of Venus. An OUSA listing of student residences for 1967 noted that at Dominican Hall ‘most necessary facilities are present although there is generally a theme of austerity’. Any austerity must have contrasted with the surviving ‘opulent elegant detail’ of the building, from embossed plaster ceilings to Minton floor tiles and ornate door handles. Image courtesy of Dominican Sisters archives, F15/5/1.

Like the other churches, Catholics saw a need to provide for their young people coming from around the country to Dunedin. In 1945 the Dominican Sisters, a teaching order at the forefront of Catholic education in Otago since arriving in 1871, purchased a grand stone home in spacious grounds in Park Street. In 1946 it began a new life as Dominican Hall, a residential college for 20 women students. One of them, Shona Scannell, later recalled that they formed a ‘lovely family … We went to the pictures together and had social sports groups. I thought it was wonderful’. In 1948 the sisters had additional bedrooms added atop the building; with that and other alterations plus the purchase of a neighbouring property in 1953, Dominican Hall expanded to house 48. Some women had single rooms but, as in most residential colleges of the day, others shared. Residents of the ‘dormitory’ reported on their exploits in the 1960 Dominican Hall magazine. ‘Life with seven in a room can be rather hectic’, noted Maureen Donnelly, but ‘a great sense of comradeship has grown’. They took part in all the social and sporting activities on offer, and ‘If there is any trouble we are all in it together, be it smoking in unlawful places, creeping in rather late, or just not sweeping the floor. We have formed a Rock’n Roll Recorder Group and at one stage our singing was of such quality it was mistaken for the radio’.

Students singing compline led by Father Ambrose Loughnan OP, Dominican Hall, in 1956. Religion was an important feature of Dominican life. The students were cared for by a small group of sisters and a resident chaplain; they hosted visits from the bishop and meetings of the Catholic Students’ Club, held retreats and had their own branch of the Children of Mary sodality. Image courtesy of Dominican Sisters archives, F15/8/2.

Not to be outdone by the Anglicans (who established Selwyn), Presbyterians (Knox and St Margaret’s) and Catholics (Dominican and Aquinas), in 1958 the Methodists joined the student accommodation business. Like several other institutions, Wesley Hall started with the purchase of a private residence. The Park Street home had room for 14 students – all men – and a resident matron, with the Methodist Central Mission’s superintendent acting as non-resident warden. The bedrooms were rather small and ‘no studies are provided’, reported the OUSA in 1967, ‘but there is a common room with piano and table tennis table’. The crowded conditions did not deter some residents. At the end of 1961 matron Elsie Maclean reported: ‘we seem to have some bright lads at present and the majority are anxious to return again next year … Several will be spending their fourth year here’. Their behaviour was generally ‘quite good till about midnight when apparently they become restive and noisy but as this seems to be the usual procedure in the student world, we patiently wait till the spasm subsides’. As a small institution Wesley Hall struggled for recognition by other colleges, though the residents organised events, such as ‘a very enjoyable’ hockey match and lunch with the women of Dominican Hall in 1964. The 1963 and 1964 presidents noted the perils of having too many residents from one district – in this case, Gore – which ‘tends to create a rather narrow range of acquaintances’. It could also ‘cause a certain amount of friction and suspicion ie “Who told my parents that I took so and so out last week?”’, suggested Kenneth Thomson.

The large Park Street home which became Wesley Hall was originally built in 1918 for lawyer Herbert Adams, but later run as a guest house. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, John McIndoe Ltd records, MS-3247/584, S17-564b.

Unlike several other residences with small beginnings, Wesley Hall did not grow larger, though that was the original plan. Methodist Superintendent David Gordon explained in 1970 that the Central Mission planned extensions for years, but on consultation with Otago VC Arthur Beacham concluded ‘with the rising running costs for a hostel, we should build nothing smaller than a 100 bed hostel’. As time passed and the ‘optimum size’ increased, the project grew ‘entirely beyond the resources of the Central Mission’. The government offered subsidies to organisations building student accommodation – that helped with the initial set up of Wesley Hall – but the cost of a new building was significant and the church had other priorities for social service funding. It ‘decided reluctantly’ to close Wesley Hall at the end of 1970; it had run at a loss throughout its 12 years. The building which had housed lively young men as a student residence was purchased by the Department of Health to become ‘a Hostel for the Rehabilitation of Alcoholics’.

An oversupply of accommodation for women led to the end of Dominican Hall; at the end of 1978 the Dominican Sisters announced it was closing. At its peak, it accommodated 50 residents, but by 1978 had just 28, though ’40 can be taken comfortably’. The decline was due to ‘the growth in larger, more modern hostels’, suggested Sister Bernadette (UniCol opened in 1969 and Salmond in 1971). As a small institution it could not afford to carry many vacancies in a period of rising expenses; the demand for improvements to meet DCC fire safety regulations was the final straw. For women who preferred a Catholic residence a new option was available, with Aquinas accepting women in 1979, but it also closed at the end of 1980 after a downturn in the university roll (the university purchased and re-opened it in 1988 after the roll surged again). In their day, Dominican and Wesley were obviously lively places which contributed to the welfare of their residents and the university; it was economics which spelled their end.

Dominican residents ready for a 1955 ball. Back row (from left): Clare Ryan, Judy Knight, Marlene Prentice, Bernadette Lloyd, Kathleen Kennedy. Front: Mary Horn, Pauline Burke, Clare Curran, Yvonne Young, Margaret Potts. Image courtesy of Dominican Sisters archives, F15/9/3.

My thanks to the Dominican Sisters for the wonderful photographs from their archives. I’d love to hear from anybody with photographs of Wesley Hall!

Three more colleges

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1900s, 1910s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Knox, Salmond, St Margaret's, theology, women

The first stage of Knox College under construction, c.1908. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Universal Post Card Co., G. Campbell series, Box-308-006, S16-548b.

The Anglicans – a minority group in colonial Otago – were the first to establish a residential college at the university, as I outlined in a recent post. The much larger Presbyterian community was slower to get started, but once it did, it went one better, opening a college for men in 1909 (Knox) and another for women in 1911 (St Margaret’s). As the university grew, the Presbyterians also added a third college – Salmond – in 1971. As had been the case with Selwyn, it was the needs of theology students that helped get these colleges started, though they were open to other students from the beginning.

The campaign to open a Presbyterian residential college was started and led by popular Presbyterian minister Andrew Cameron. Cameron, one of Otago’s early graduates, was on the university council (he later served as chancellor) and convened the church’s committee on theological training. The church had started training its own ministers locally in the 1870s. Classes took place at the theology professor’s home in Leith Street (where St Margaret’s now stands), but between the professor’s large family, the library and a growing student body the space quickly grew cramped. Cameron was keen to establish a college which would provide a better space for theology training, together with residential accommodation for its students and those of the university. He identified a good site in Opoho – the land already belonged to the Presbyterian Church – and in 1902 set about a major fundraising campaign. The campaign started well with a large donation from one of New Zealand’s wealthiest men, John Ross, of the large importing and manufacturing firm Ross and Glendining. Other donations trickled in, and in 1908 the foundation stone of a grand and imposing building was laid. The first 40 residents moved into Knox College – named after the Scottish theological reformer – in 1909. Nineteen of them were students at the theological hall and the remainder were university students (9 of those completing the undergraduate university degree necessary before they could start theological training). With new wings and alterations, by 1914 the college had expanded to house 94 residents.

The Knox farce was a regular feature of capping concerts for many years. The cast of the 1946 farce, ‘Cameo and Mabelette’, included Ratu Kamisese Mara, future Prime Minister of Fiji (the tall figure, standing at centre). Image courtesy of Michael Shackleton.

The original St Margaret’s College in 1911. The building had previously housed the Presbyterian theology professor. Image from the Otago Witness, 19 April 1911, courtesy of the Hocken Collections, S10-133a.

Other than the master’s family and the domestic staff, all of the Knox residents were men: the idea that male and female students might live in the same college was well outside the norms of the era. But women coming to study at the university or teachers’ college in Dunedin also needed somewhere to live, especially as landladies often preferred male to female boarders (because men often spent more time out of the house, and also required fewer laundry facilities). In 1909 a Women Student’s Hostel Committee was formed by church people interested in establishing a women’s college. After various political complications, they managed to secure the lease of the building vacated by the theological college when Knox opened. It was a rundown building but the site, right next to the university, was ideal. After a few hurried repairs, early in 1911 the first residents moved into St Margaret’s College, which was named after a highly devout medieval Queen of Scotland. By the end of the year the new college had 15 residents, made up of 12 training college and 3 university students. It was a small beginning, but the college council had big plans; unfortunately it did not have any money. After several years of fundraising, in 1914 construction commenced on a new brick building, and at the end of 1917 it was complete, with room for 70 residents. Life in St Margaret’s was strictly controlled, but the women established a happy community at a time when they were not welcomed by all parts of the university. Almost a third of Otago students were women in the 1910s (even more in the war years), and as St Margaret’s historian Susannah Grant points out, the college ‘stood on the hill as a visible symbol of women’s increasing participation in higher education’. It also served as a focal point and meeting place for all women students.

St Margaret’s College residents and staff in 1924. Image courtesy of Hocken Collections, St Margaret’s College records, AG-157-N2, S10-532a.

Knox and St Margaret’s grew through the decades, especially during the 1960s, when both added new wings. By the end of that decade Knox provided a home for 155 residents and St Margaret’s for 170. There was no shortage of demand for student accommodation, with the university roll doubling between 1960 and 1970. That was one of the motives behind a 1960s scheme to build another women’s residential college in the grounds of Knox College. The initial spur for the new project was, however, the needs of women training for church vocations. Since 1903 women training as Presbyterian deaconesses had lived together as a small community, but some of their leaders felt they would benefit from living alongside other students, just as men training for the ministry did at Knox College. After all, the women already shared some classes with men at the theological hall. In 1963 the Presbyterian Church approved the scheme for a new residence, which would cater for women training as deaconesses as well as other women students of all denominations and all faculties. The idea that Presbyterian women should be granted the same privileges as men gained further impetus the following year, when the church approved the ordination of women as clergy. Nobody yet considered the more radical possibility that men and women might actually live together in one college.

A fundraising appeal got underway in 1965; generous government subsidies for the building of student accommodation meant the church only needed to raise part of the expense. There were considerable delays, with the government deferring its contribution due to financial difficulties and tightening controls on the building industry, but construction finally started late in 1969. In 1971 the first intake of 140 women moved in; three were students for the Presbyterian ministry, with the rest at the university or teachers’ college. Salmond Hall (known as Salmond College from 2006) was named for a prominent local Presbyterian family, in particular Mary Salmond, a former principal of the deaconess college, and her brother James Salmond, a minister and leader of Christian education. The first warden, Keren Fulton, combined experience and good Presbyterian credentials; she had run the YWCA hostel, Kinnaird House, and was a Presbyterian deacon.

The newly-built Salmond Hall, c.1971. Image courtesy of Hocken Collections, Salmond Anderson Architects records, MS-3821/2000, S16-548a.

Salmond quickly developed a life of its own. Though it shared a few facilities, such as tennis courts, with its older neighbour up the hill, and they held a few combined social events, Salmond and Knox maintained distinct identities and cultures. They were, however, governed by the same council. Once Salmond was up and running that council turned its attention to the needs of another growing group of students for the ministry: those who were married, often with children. In 1976 it opened a new complex of flats in the Knox grounds, named Somerville Court in honour of Knox master and university chancellor Jack Somerville. They included flats designed for families alongside others which catered for the growing demand for flats from groups of single students. As private flat provision grew, there was less call for these flats, so they were absorbed into Knox College. Together with other additions and alterations, this expanded Knox to cater for 215 residents; St Margaret’s now accommodates 224 residents and Salmond 238.

An aerial view of Knox College in 2008. The Somerville Court flats are to the left of the main building, and the Presbyterian theological hall (now the Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership) and library at the rear. Image courtesy of University of Otago Marketing and Communications.

Knox, St Margaret’s and Salmond are now formally affiliated to the University of Otago, but continue to be owned and managed by the Presbyterian Church. Despite their religious background, they have always been open to students of any faith (or none). I suspect, though, that some of the Presbyterian founders might be a little surprised to know that the college they established for young ladies in 1911 has had a Catholic priest (Peter Norris) as warden since 1989! They might also be surprised to discover that the colleges, like all at Otago, accommodate both men and women. Salmond did not remain a solely female domain for long, admitting a few men from 1975, while St Margaret’s admitted men for the first time in 1981. Knox admitted its first woman as a senior resident in 1982, meaning it narrowly escaped becoming the last single sex college at Otago; both Knox and Selwyn provided a home for undergraduate women from 1982.

St Margaret’s College, 2012. Image courtesy of University of Otago Marketing and Communications.

With over 600 residents each year, the Presbyterian colleges make a big contribution to the university (and in Salmond’s case, also to the Otago Polytechnic). Do you have any stories to share of their past? I’m especially interested in hearing memories of Salmond, since it doesn’t have the benefit of a published history, like Knox and St Margaret’s!

Salmond College in 2009. Image courtesy of University of Otago Marketing and Communications.

The first residential college

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1890s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, Knox, Selwyn, theology

The first Selwyn building, photographed in the early 1900s. Another storey was added in 1930, together with a new wing. On the left is the Selwyn Collegiate School building, erected in 1907. After the school closed in 1911 it became part of the college. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Selwyn College archives, 84-086/062, S16-503a.

There are many friendly rivalries between the University of Otago’s 15 residential colleges, but there’s one honour that nobody can ever take away from Selwyn College: that of being the oldest. It opened in 1893, but the planning behind it went back another twenty years or so, almost to the university’s beginnings. As I explained in a recent post, when the university moved from the centre of town to its current Dunedin campus in the late 1870s it had to abandon initial plans of providing student accommodation due to lack of funds. Students who couldn’t stay at home needed to find their own place to live, generally in private board. Over the years the cash-strapped university naturally prioritised teaching facilities when it planned new developments, and the idea of providing student residences fell well down the wish list. Studholme, which opened in 1915 to provide both accommodation and practical experience to home science students, was the only university-initiated hall of residence until Unicol opened as a centennial project in 1969.

The churches and – in the case of Arana and Carrington – groups of community-minded Christians, stepped in to fill what they saw as a need. Church people were concerned for the well-being of their own young people who came to Otago from all over New Zealand to study in its ‘special’ schools, including medicine, dentistry and mining. Residential colleges enabled them to provide oversight and pastoral care to students. In the case of the first two colleges – Selwyn and Knox – they also had connections to theological training.

Selwyn was the brainchild of Samuel Nevill, first Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Dunedin (which covered all of Otago and Southland). The southern church was small and short of funds, but Nevill was determined to set up theological training locally and began a long fundraising campaign for a college in 1872. As he later remarked, ‘however much we may desire to obtain clergy who have had the great advantage of Home [that is, English] training, we cannot afford to rely only upon such a source of supply’. Also in 1872, two students started out as candidates for the Anglican ministry, living in Nevill’s own home (thanks to a wealthy wife, he had built his own substantial residence, Bishopscourt). Through the years he continued to accommodate others, with various clergy serving as tutors. In the face of considerable apathy and opposition, Nevill’s fund for a college slowly built up and at the 1886 synod the bishop announced ‘I have taken another step forward in this matter by the purchase of a house, very conveniently situated in relation to the university, which I should wish future students to attend if possible’. This house – destined to become the warden’s residence – became home to the theology tutor for the next few years.

Building finally got underway in 1891 and in 1893 Selwyn College – named after New Zealand’s first Anglican bishop, George Augustus Selwyn – opened its doors to its first six students. It was, from the beginning, a ‘mixed’ college, open to men studying at the university alongside the candidates for the priesthood; the foundation residents included five candidates for holy orders plus one medical student. This was seen to be advantageous to both groups, as Bishop Julius of Christchurch explained when the foundation stone was laid. Theological students would ‘be infinitely advantaged by contact with men who are training for other professions, and for the knowledge they will gain there … from those who look upon life from other points of view’. These other students, meanwhile, would ‘have the advantage of association with men, brave, spiritually-minded men, men already given heart and soul to God’s service, and they cannot fail to be better for such influence’.

The college struggled in its first few decades due to its ongoing lack of funds. By 1909 there were 25 residents and, with no shortage of applications, the warden was anxious to expand. In 1911 Selwyn Collegiate School closed and its building became part of the college. This was a private school for boys that had been taken over by the Anglican church and installed in an old house in the Selwyn College grounds plus part of the warden’s residence. In 1907 a brand new classroom block was opened for the school but it failed to attract enough students to keep going. The former classrooms became rather austere bedrooms for Selwyn residents. Some residents had their rooms in a neighbouring house purchased by Alice Woodthorpe, the warden’s wife, and later the college’s Board of Governors, which took over management of Selwyn from the St Paul’s Cathedral Chapter in 1914, purchased other neighbouring houses. The wardens’ families – wives, mothers and sisters – played an important part in college life in the early decades, often serving as matrons and cooks.

A Selwyn College bedroom/study, from an album by photographer C.M. Collins. It probably dates from around 1930, when the new wing was added. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Selwyn College archives, 84-086/062, S16-503b.

Resident numbers dropped during World War I and the college actually closed for a year in 1918, after warden Robert Woodthorpe left. In 1919 LG (‘Algy’) Whitehead began a long reign – 31 years – as Selwyn warden, earning widespread respect and affection. He set about renovating the rundown buildings and, with the superior fundraising skills of politician James Allen to hand, was able to raise enough money to build a new wing of the college and add a third storey to the original building. Opened in 1930, the new wing included a splendid dining hall funded as a memorial by the family of the Massey brothers, killed in World War I. Life at Selwyn remained spartan by today’s standards, but was becoming increasingly comfortable. Later on, in the 1950s and 1960s, further buildings and extensions took the roll up to over 90.

Early Selwyn residents soon developed communal traditions, with some surviving into modern times; perhaps most famous is the Selwyn ballet, which dates back to 1928. The theological students were quickly outnumbered by others, particularly medical students. Nevertheless, religion remained an important influence, and until the mid-1980s all the wardens were Anglican clergy. They conducted services at the adjacent All Saints Church, which students were expected to attend. Algy Whitehead started regular high teas around 1920. He was a wine connoisseur who noted that it started as ‘a soft drink affair. Then it ascended to wine, but later degenerated to beer’. One of Selwyn’s most famous former residents, Rhodes Scholar, surgeon, Olympian and Governor General Arthur Porritt, later recalled that life in Selwyn in the early 1920s was ‘cosmopolitan to a degree, very free and easy (in contrast to Knox!) and though we were relatively few in numbers we could produce a team in almost any sport. Despite our “Boys about Town” reputation we were 100% loyal to our “Headmaster” – the Rev Algy Whitehead (and his two spinster sisters who cared for our material and domestic welfare) and tried to ensure that our not infrequent pranks brought no odium on him’. Knox, in good Presbyterian fashion, had much stricter rules about alcohol, but was more liberal in allowing female visitors. Both of these colleges developed a reputation for misogyny in later decades, and Selwyn was the last Otago college to admit women, in 1983 (even then protest from male residents and alumni continued for some years).

Another photo, this time of a common room, from the C.M. Collins album. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Selwyn College archives, 84-086/062, S16-503c.

Residential colleges are now a central part of life at the University of Otago, but the tradition of living in college was slow to get off the ground. It took twenty years of determined effort for Bishop Nevill to get the first, Selwyn, opened. Otago has many reasons to be grateful to the man whose vision established a place which has provided a home for thousands of its students, and set an example for others to follow!

The centenary project – UniCol

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1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, centenary, UniCol

The front of University College in its early days – the cantilevered entry was quite a feature until additions built it out. The John Middleditch sculpture was a centenary gift to the university from the Association of Staff Wives. Image courtesy of Hocken Collections, c/nE3724/44a, S15-008a.

As this is the 100^th post on this blog (that went fast!) I decided to write something with a centenary theme. The university’s centenary gift to itself in 1969 was the largest university residential college in Australasia: University College, most often known as UniCol, built right on campus. ‘Our tradition dictates that we should celebrate our centenary by strengthening the communal and broader cultural aspects of university life’, stated vice-chancellor Arthur Beacham as he launched a fundraising campaign for the new college in 1964. Student numbers were increasing rapidly and accommodation for the many who came from beyond Dunedin was in short supply. The campaign kicked off with large donations from the Dunedin City Council and Otago Savings Bank and later a very substantial gift from old investment firm the National Mortgage and Agency Company made building possible; the government offered a 2 for 1 subsidy on money raised by the university.

One of the tower blocks, 2006. Image courtesy of University of Otago Marketing & Communications.

The original plan was for 300 residents, but to make the most of the subsidies on offer the capacity was increased to 324 beds (double the size of any existing Dunedin college). The extras were squeezed into the basement and spaces originally allocated to kitchenettes – residents quickly christened these smaller rooms the gimp rooms. Acclaimed local architect Ted McCoy came up with a striking modernist design featuring two ten-storey bedroom tower blocks with the main communal areas in a single-storey block at the front; it was to be the tallest building in Dunedin. The towers, explained McCoy, featured recessions and balconies ‘to avoid a big rectangular block, or a great square building’. The original pre-cast concrete fronts of the balconies were later replaced with perforated steel and higher glass fronts to improve safety and security.

A 1972 report by the college’s master and council chair noted the challenges and successes of its first four years. Despite doomsayers, it proved popular with students, achieving full occupancy and better than average academic pass rates. But building had been expensive and the college had large debts. The number of students brought its own challenge: ‘There is probably no more lonely or isolated person in any residential hall in Dunedin than the last member of University College who enters the dining room for the first time.’ The ‘architecture tends to control social patterns’, noted the report. ‘At meal times each lift delivers to the ground floor about ten or a dozen people largely from the same floor. These people join the lunch time queue in the dining room together and tend to sit at the same table.’ By default, the ‘floor’ became the main social unit of UniCol – most floors housed 18 people.

Though it was a mixed-gender college, right from the beginning UniCol developed quite a ‘blokey’ culture, probably as a way for the male residents to assert themselves amidst the rather chauvinistic culture of the university and all-male colleges like Selwyn, Knox, Arana and Aquinas. The separation of men and women within UniCol didn’t help. Women had the north tower and men the south tower and visiting was strictly regulated – as people formed their closest bonds with people sharing their floor this reduced integration. UniCol was founded at a time when mixed flatting was a hot topic and many students desired greater freedom to make their own lifestyle choices, so it’s no great surprise that a campaign for integration of the towers began early on; it was sparked off by a speech from visiting broadcaster Brian Edwards in 1971. Despite overwhelming support from the residents, the master and council resisted requests for mixing of the towers for many years, in part due to a concern that female residents needed protection from the robust behaviour of the men of UniCol. When integration was finally implemented in 1989, after a trial the previous year, it had a positive effect on college life: among other changes, there was less noise and less damage. A few floors remained single-sex for those who preferred that option.

Residents studying in the sunshine, 2009. Image courtesy of University of Otago Marketing & Communications.

Integration didn’t entirely end rowdy behaviour, of course, though fortunately the dangerous skyrocket wars between the college and flats on Clyde Street had gone; they were a feature of Guy Fawkes season in the mid-1970s and again in the mid-1980s. In the 1990s UniCol continued its well-established reputation as a ‘party’ college; reforms around the turn of the century increased pastoral care, raised behavioural expectations and modified the worst excesses. Renovations smartened up the facilities and in 2004 the dining hall was extended to cater for more students; the addition of two new four-storey wings took the roll up by over 100 people that year.

UniCol has provided a home for a considerable proportion of Otago students over the past few decades; it was an inspired choice for the university’s centenary project. It is a big, noisy, colourful place, as you would expect from the home of over 500 bright young people! Do you have any memories to share of Otago’s largest college?

A view across campus from one of the communal balconies, 2013. Image courtesy of University of Otago Marketing & Communications.

Radical Carrington

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1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Arana, Carrington, Stuart House

A happy group of Carrington residents in the late 1940s. Standing (left to right): ?, D Whalan, ?, B Pohe, N Parris, R Williams. At front right is Ben Whitiwhiti. Image courtesy of Bill Dawson, from an album of Robin Cook.

When Carrington opened 70 years ago it had one major difference from Otago’s older residential colleges – it welcomed both men and women. That was pretty radical for the 1940s, and for a few years Carrington was Australasia’s only ‘co-residential’ student hall of residence.

The Stuart House Council’s decision to run a mixed residence was a pragmatic response to the needs and opportunities of the time. It evolved out of a successful experiment at their earlier student residence, Stuart House, which was absorbed into the new Carrington. In 1940 Harold Turner, the assistant minister at Knox Church, where many parishioners were students, came up with the idea of opening a small student hostel in the former Presbyterian Women’s Training Institute at 638 Cumberland Street (where one end of the Student Union is now). He formed a committee with several other enthusiasts, among them George Carrington (secretary of the Otago Education Board) and successful businessmen Cecil Wardell (of the flourishing Wardell’s grocery firm) and Gifford Laurenson (of the equally flourishing bakery firm). Turner later described them as ‘a private voluntary group on a religious but interdenominational basis’.

In 1941 Stuart House, as they renamed the Cumberland Street property, opened to 29 men, some of them accommodated in an ‘annexe’ at the former Training College building across the road (now part of the physical education school). In 1942, with many male students headed off for military service but an influx of women students, the council decided to change Stuart House to a women’s residence. Since some men had already been offered places, they found bedrooms for them in private homes nearby but kept them as ‘associate members’ of Stuart House, which they attended for meals and social activities. This makeshift arrangement proved unexpectedly successful; it was popular with the residents and Turner, the warden, was pleased that the house was ‘much quieter and more orderly than it was last year’.

With no shortage of demand for student accommodation, the Stuart House Council always had an eye out for suitable buildings which might be converted. In 1942 they persuaded the university to purchase Arana, the home of the late Sir James Allen, and lease it to them. It opened as a residence for men in 1943. In late 1944 another good property, located on Heriot Row, came on the market. Carrington bought it on spec, having heard a rumour that the government was planning to provide money for teachers’ college student accommodation. Fortunately this proved correct, and after some delay the Otago Education Board funded the building, leaving its management in the hands of the council (now named the Stuart Residence Halls Council). Like Stuart House and Arana, Carrington was open to both university and teachers’ college students.

Building a float for the 1946 capping procession, in front of the first house purchased for Carrington. The man with saw in hand is Murray Menzies, who became a surgeon. Image from Pat Menzies, courtesy of Carrington College.

Students moved into the new Carrington Hall in 1945 – women into the former Halstead property and men into one of the two neighbouring houses the council had purchased. The generous grounds of the old houses provided room for yet more accommodation and in 1947 a brand new wing named Stuart House opened, along with more temporary buildings made from army huts. In that year Carrington provided a home for 105 students, being 53 men and 52 women. The original Stuart House in Cumberland Street became flats in 1947; the council sold the building in 1952.

Even the laundry was once segregated! A photo taken by 1953-4 resident Lex Familton after a raid on the women’s drying room. Image courtesy of Carrington College.

So, the radical experiment in accommodating women and men in the same residential college happened rather by accident, but since it proved a success it was allowed to continue. Of course the liberals of the 1940s weren’t quite as liberal as those of later generations, and there were strict rules about the mixing of men and women at Carrington. They could socialise freely in the communal spaces, but for the first few decades they had segregated bedroom wings/houses. Until 1976 all of the wardens were clergymen, some more conservative than others. Legend has it that one warden and his wife would listen in at the men’s doors to ensure any women had left before 7p.m. In 1973 the integration of buildings commenced, though men and women still had separate floors for many years.

Turner wrote in the 1950s about the advantages of mixed residences, where the sexes could socialise in a ‘natural and happy’ way and form ‘decent and sensible friendships’. Pranks and raids were less extreme than in some of the men’s colleges and, overall, it made ‘the men less crude, and the girls less giggly’. Co-residence could be ‘too distracting for some students’, though, suggested Turner, and some argued that it was ‘good for men to spend some years in a thoroughly masculine environment; presumably the parallel position is true of women’.

Though some university authorities got pretty het up about mixed flatting in the 1960s, they saw the advantages of mixed residential colleges, especially as the number of women students grew and eventually overtook the number of men. University College (Unicol) opened in 1969 as another mixed residence, albeit with men and women living in separate towers for many years. During the 1970s Studholme, Salmond, Arana and Aquinas all went co-ed, St Margaret’s joined the trend in 1981, and in 1983 the oldest colleges – Selwyn and Knox – finally and controversially lost their positions as bastions of masculinity (some would say chauvinism!).

Gymnastics at Carrington, from the album of Robin Cook, a resident of the late 1940s. Image courtesy of Bill Dawson.

Meanwhile, the trailblazer Carrington continued on its happy way as a residence open to all. As neighbouring properties came on the market they were absorbed into the college, which now provides accommodation for around 240 students in an attractively landscaped collection of 11 buildings, some of them refurbished large old homes and some of them purpose-built. The Stuart Residence Halls Council eventually sold both Carrington and Arana to the university, which now directly manages these colleges. With the funds obtained, the council then made very generous gifts back to the university, endowing the Stuart Chair in Science Communication and the Stuart Chair in Scottish Studies.

Do you have any memories to share of the early decades of Carrington? Can you identify anybody in the photographs? If so, I’d love to hear from you!

Our oldest building – some runners up

Tags

1870s, 1880s, Arana, St Margaret's

This J.W. Allen photograph looking down on the corner of Dundas and Leith streets was probably taken in the mid-1870s, before the university moved to its current site. The Tilbury family home is at front left, and part of the Scotia Hotel is visible at front right. At the centre, in the middle distance, is the cottage and market garden of James Gebbie. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Album 68, S14-433.

The search for the university’s oldest building turned up several interesting contenders. Mellor House – featured in last week’s blog post – may have won the prize, but it’s a shame not to share some of the tales of other buildings we looked into!

I wouldn’t have got far in my search without the expertise of architectural history experts David Murray and Michael Findlay, who can look at a building and distinguish that some feature, such as the roof angle or style of weatherboard, dates from a particular decade, or that a house bears the distinctive marks of a particular architect. Michael and I wandered around campus looking for buildings which might be particularly old. I then researched their history from a variety of sources. Old rates records, kindly checked by DCC archivist Chris Scott, were particularly helpful in narrowing down dates.

As the old photograph above reveals, there were various houses scattered along Leith Street and the hill below Clyde Street in the 1870s. This area is still home to a collection of old houses which have been incorporated into Arana College. The big question is, how old are they, and did any of the buildings in this photo survive into the 21st century? Of course, one complication is that few houses remain unaltered for over a century! Many homes started out as small cottages and were gradually added to over the decades; a new roof or windows or cladding can disguise their original form.

Joined houses at 107-109 Dundas Street, now part of Arana. Photographed by Ali Clarke, October 2014.

A good example is the two attached houses at 107-109 Dundas Street. The large double bay windows at the front suggest a late nineteenth-century construction date, but closer inspection shows that these windows have been added to an earlier flat-fronted house. In fact, a careful look from above at the chimneys and roof lines (thanks Michael!) reveals that this is the building which appears on that same corner location in J.W. Allen’s 1870s photo. Rates records are patchy for that period, but judging by the date of the photo and the style of the original building we date its construction to the early to mid-1870s.

By 1877 – possibly earlier – this building was owned by Richard Tilbury. Just as the Cook family owned their home for eight decades, the Tilbury family were long-term owners of the joined Dundas Street houses, though the families had contrasting class backgrounds. Richard Tilbury was a Londoner, the son of a waiter. By 1870 he and his younger brother George were living in Dunedin, where both young men married. They worked together as expressmen, meaning they delivered goods to order by horse and carriage. Richard retired from the Tilbury Bros partnership in 1907, leaving his brother and nephews to run the business.

Richard Tilbury was the father of ten children, and saw his share of tragedy. His first wife, Eleanor Farnell, died in 1881, aged 32, around the time she gave birth to their seventh child. The baby followed her to the grave two months later. Two of their older children had also died as infants, and another at three years. In 1882 Richard married Irish woman Kate Finerty, who gave birth to three more children. Their son Harry drowned in the Leith in 1892. Newspaper reports of the accident reveal that the 9-year-old fell into the river just near the family home; there were suspicions that he had a seizure, which he had become prone to recently.

Fortunately not all of the Tilbury children died young; several of the five who survived childhood lived into old age. Their father, Richard Tilbury, died in 1934 aged 89 years, and his wife Kate died 6 years later. Richard left various bequests to his children. One of the pair of Dundas St houses went to his youngest daughter, Henrietta, and the other to his youngest son, William. When Henrietta Tilbury died in 1949, she left her house to be used by her sister Sophia Tilbury during her lifetime; it was then to pass to her niece Thora Smith (William’s daughter). Sophia, the oldest of the Tilburys, lived on at Dundas St until 1964, when she died at the grand old age of 90; William, the youngest, ended up in Waimate, where he died in 1968 at 80 years.

Two generations of the Tilbury family thus owned the Dundas St building for a remarkable ninety or so years. The University of Otago later bought the property and added it to the growing complex of houses which formed Arana. Arana may have been based around the grand Clyde St home of Sir James Allen, but it also came to own a mish-mash of cottages of various ages and styles. However, the Tilbury home remains the only surviving 1870s house identifiable on that side of Leith St in J.W. Allen’s photograph.

This Arana cottage was moved from further up the hill, on St David Street, to Leith Street. It dates from around 1885. Photographed by Ali Clarke, October 2014.

A couple of other houses in the vicinity did rouse our curiosity. The distinctive cottage just around the corner from the old Tilbury home, now painted orange, has the somewhat timeless design of any very simple house! It used to sit at 122 St David Street, and was moved to its current location to make way for new developments at Arana. Rates records show it was built around 1885, a few years after the university registry building.

Was this house at 368 Leith St once Gebbie’s cottage? It is in the right location, and the part at the back appears to be older than the rest of the property. Photographed by Ali Clarke, October 2014.

 

Another house I’m suspicious about is on the other side of Leith St – could this, perhaps, be built around the original cottage of James Gebbie, the nurseryman? Since the house is still privately owned, I haven’t researched it any further. There are, of course, many old buildings in the vicinity of the campus which don’t belong to the university, including some rented to students.

At the top of the hill, in Clyde Street, are some much grander homes. The Allen house, named Arana (a Maori transliteration of Allen), dates from the 1880s, as do several of the others. We wondered about the house at number 96, now known as Thorpe House and part of St Margaret’s College. Council records reveal that this is a contemporary of the university’s geology building – it was constructed in 1878 for warehouseman Joseph Ridley. The house then passed through various hands before it was purchased by solicitor Jefferson Stephens around 1913. I wonder if he socialised with the Cooks, around the corner in Union Street? The house remained in the Stephens family, latterly to Jefferson’s son Oswald Stephens, a teacher, until St Margaret’s took possession in 1980.

Do you have any stories to share of the old houses which have been absorbed into the university and its residential colleges?

Our oldest building

Tags

1860s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, Arana, geography, psychology

J.W. Allen took this photograph in the late 1860s from around where Marama Hall is today, on what was known as Tanna Hill. On the right in the middle distance is a circular garden, part of the original Botanic Garden on Albany St. On the left is the Cook family home (now Mellor House). The Leith, which is not visible, wound around the bottom of the hill. The university moved to this site in the late 1870s. Parts of Tanna Hill were levelled for building, notably the land where the Archway Theatres and Applied Sciences Building are now. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Album 68, S14-434b.

I’ve been on an intriguing mission to identify the oldest surviving building on the Dunedin campus. Assisting me were two architectural history experts – David Murray (Hocken Collections), keeper of the wonderful Built in Dunedin blog, and Michael Findlay (Department of Applied Sciences), who sparked the idea for this project and then helped me identify likely suspects. I’m most grateful to them, and also to Chris Scott of the city council archives, who helped with clues in old rates records.

When considering old University of Otago buildings, most people probably think first of the old stone buildings at the centre of the campus. When the university council decided to move operations from the original location in Princes Street, it commissioned two large buildings on its new site beside the Leith in North Dunedin. Work on the chemistry and anatomy building (now the geology building) was completed in 1878, and on the main building (now the registry) in 1879. Both were smaller than they are today, with extensions added in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The St David Street homes for four professors (now known as Scott/Shand House and Black/Sale House) were also completed in 1879.

As the university expanded, it began acquiring properties neighbouring its original block of land. Often these included old houses, which ranged from tiny cottages to substantial residences. Some were later demolished to make way for new buildings but others have survived, including a few which pre-date the geology building. Their original residents had no idea they would one day be living close to a university, let alone that their house would one day be part of it!

The east side of Mellor House, photographed by Ali Clarke, August 2014.

We are pretty certain that the honour of being the oldest building on campus belongs to Mellor House, one of the old Union Street houses now occupied by the psychology department. The house was originally built in 1862 for Thomas Calcutt, a printer who migrated from England to Otago in 1858. As well as continuing to work in the printing trade, Calcutt served as a court clerk and later became a valuer of land taken for public works. He probably picked up the latter job because of his experience as a land speculator, for his 1895 obituary notes that “he displayed much natural shrewdness in matters of business, and made many profitable speculations in landed property.” Early on – certainly by 1861 – he acquired all of the land in the block bounded by Clyde Street, Union Street, Leith Street and the river; there were no houses on the land at that stage. In March 1862 advertisements appeared in the Otago Daily Times for carpenters and painters for “a Dwelling House now building for Mr Thomas Calcutt, Pelichet Bay. Apply to the foreman on the Ground.” By October of that year, Thomas and Mary Calcutt were living in their new home, dubbed Leith Cottage, where Mary gave birth to their son Arthur.

Mellor House as it appears from Union Street. Photographed by Ali Clarke, August 2014.

Sadly, baby Arthur Calcutt died at just four months, but in January 1864 another child was born at Leith Cottage, this time to its new owners, George and Ann Cook. While the Calcutts’ stay in the house had been brief, the Cook family were to own it for eight decades. George Cook was an English solicitor who arrived in Otago late in 1860 and was admitted to the New Zealand bar in January 1861; intriguingly, his wife Ann and one of their children migrated a couple of years earlier, on the same ship as Thomas Calcutt. The final reference I have found to the name “Leith Cottage” dates from 1868, when Ann Cook advertised for a general servant. Perhaps this name was dropped as the house was extended: like many houses of the period it has clearly been enlarged from humbler beginnings.

The house at 93 Union Place, which dates from the early 20th century, was moved there from the site of the new Commerce Building. Photographed by Ali Clarke, August 2014.

By the time George Cook died in 1898, aged 82, he was Dunedin’s longest serving lawyer. He was a careful and conservative practitioner: “an upright, estimable lawyer of the old English school – a man who brought with him to the colony all the traditions and all the prejudices of the English bar, and who resented all innovations.” The Cooks lived in splendid isolation on their property until around 1902, when further houses were added to the block; presumably Ann Cook sold off some of the land after her husband died. Some of the houses built around that time also survive and are now occupied by the psychology department, including those at 99 Union Street (next to the Commerce Building) and 97 Union Street (Galton House). The charming two-storey house on the corner of Leith and Union streets was originally at 103 Union Street, but moved to its current location at the top of the hill in 1990 to make way for the new Commerce Building.

Galton House was built in the grounds of the Cook family home in the early years of the 20th century. Photographed by Ali Clarke, August 2014.

When Ann Cook died in 1907 she left the original family home to son John Alfred Cook. John Cook was another solicitor; indeed he practised together with his father for some time. Law ran in the family: another son, Reginald Cook, was a lawyer in Sydney, while daughter Clara Cook married lawyer Frederick Chapman, who became a well-known judge. Their brother George was a government engineer, while Spencer was a banker and Montague worked for Dalgetys. Later Cook generations also entered the law, and the name survives as part of legal firm Gallaway Cook Allan. John Cook died at his Union Street home in February 1945 at the ripe old age of 92 years and his wife Margaret died four months later.

At that time the university was on the lookout for houses suitable for student accommodation. The roll was on the rise, and would shoot up in 1946 as returned servicemen came to university. It purchased the Cook family home and named it Mellor House in honour of one of Otago’s most successful graduates, chemist Joseph Mellor. A blueprint drawn up for the university in 1945 reveals it as a substantial residence, with six bedrooms, a study and a bathroom upstairs. Downstairs were a drawing room, dining room, library, kitchen, scullery, pantry and bathroom, and there were a couple of outbuildings as well.

The growing university needed room for classrooms and offices as well as student bedrooms, and in 1946 Mellor House began its life as a university building with a dual purpose. Upstairs the bedrooms became an outlying part of Arana Hall. The “Mellor House boys” – a mixture of returned servicemen and young school leavers – had their meals at the main college but slept in the old Cook family bedrooms. Arana still has a delightful photograph of one of the residents dressed in some old Victorian woman’s clothing they discovered upstairs! Downstairs became the home of the newly established Department of Geography. Two rooms were knocked together to create a classroom and the pantry became a staff office. Tea on the verandah was a departmental tradition.

The mixed use of the building could be interesting at times. Saturday morning geography labs were often accompanied by the “Mellor House boys” singing in the shower, and fuses frequently blew due to residents plugging toasters into light sockets. As the geography department grew, it gradually expanded upstairs and into a prefab hut in the garden; the last Arana “boys” lived at Mellor House in the late 1950s. Late in 1964 geography moved to the newly built Library/Arts Building (since replaced with the ISB Building). Mellor House then became home, once again, to a newly established department: this time it was psychology.

The Department of Psychology now has a claim to one of the university’s most modern large buildings – the William James Building, completed in 2010 – and what is almost certainly its oldest building – Mellor House, completed in 1862. I wonder what colonial property developer Thomas Calcutt and the legal Cook family would think of the current use of their home!

 

Promoting Otago, 1980s-style

Tags

1980s, film, flatting, promotion

A screenshot from the film ‘Learning is a way of life,’ courtesy of the Hocken Collections, University of Otago Higher Education Development Centre films, MS-4104/003. Copyright University of Otago.

In 1981, following 25 years of a growing or, at worst, stable roll, the University of Otago faced a decline in student enrolments. As the northern universities continued to grow, Otago dropped from 7004 students in 1980 to 6825 in 1981, and would drop again to 6739 in 1982. At a time when travel and accommodation costs were rising rapidly, Otago, which drew the majority of its students from out of town, was at a disadvantage. Adding to its woes was the government’s new Tertiary Assistance Grants Scheme, introduced in 1980 to replace the old student bursary system. The new scheme was less generous, and students did not discover whether or not they had been approved for the “hardship” addition to the basic grant until well into the year; many were turned down. Some potential students were not willing to risk penury and Otago’s enrolments suffered.

The university was not about to take this lying down. Attempts to persuade government to amend its student funding policies proved unsuccessful, meaning the university’s promotional activities became critically important. To attract future students, it produced “attractive colour brochures” about its various degree courses and its residential colleges. It also broadened its promotional efforts with an exciting new venture, the film Learning is a way of life: an introduction to student life at Otago University. The Hocken has recently digitised the 16mm films in its collections, and I’m delighted to be able to share some excerpts on this blog (the film remains copyright to the University of Otago).

Learning is a way of life was produced in-house by the Higher Education Development Centre’s AV production centre, with a budget of $11,700 (including distribution costs). Planning began early in 1981, with a committee of four: HEDC director David Teather, Robert van der Vyver (the film’s producer), English professor Colin Gibson (who wrote the script), and university liaison officer Ian Page. Music professor John Drummond composed the bouncy soundtrack, performed by members of the music department. The budget included two hours of helicopter hire for the opening aerial shots.

Though scripted, the film was based on the experiences of five real students: Peter Griffiths (a med student), Amanda Ellis (arts), Diana Carson (commerce), Graham Mandeno (science) and Joan Parker (education). They were clearly selected to represent a wide range of students. While Ellis was a fresher learning her way around campus, Griffiths was in his third year and a sub-warden at Unicol. Parker (who doesn’t appear in these excerpts) was a mature student with children at school.

Titles and opening scenes:

Orientation:

The “terrific” new clubs and socs building:

The joys of flatting:

Around the University Union:

 

I’ve selected some general scenes of student life to show here, but the 33-minute film also featured lectures, tutorials, field work, music and drama productions, along with a few scenes of the Dunedin shops and entertainment venues. It closed with scenes from graduation.

The film screened on nationwide television in June and September 1982, and there was also a showing at the Dunedin Public Library. By November more than 30 copies had been sold or loaned to schools or individuals. But how successful was the university’s first major promotional effort? Enrolments jumped by 350 in 1983 and by just over 200 more in 1984; by the end of the 1980s growth had accelerated and Otago had over 10,000 students. As the 1985 university newsletter commented, Otago was back to the familiar problem of “a rising roll and a limited budget.” It is difficult to measure what influence the film may have had on enrolments. I’m not convinced that the scenes of Amanda’s hostel room would have drawn anybody here! If you saw this film and it helped sway your decision to come to Otago, I’d love to hear from you.

Otago’s promotional efforts of the early 1980s started something. Competition between tertiary providers was heating up as free market economics gained influence. “This is a competitive world and Otago’s promotional efforts triggered off activity in some of the other universities,” noted the staff newsletter in 1985. Media and communications accelerated in importance and various campaigns have since sought to grow Otago’s “place in the world,” as one slogan put it.

Learning is a way of life was, in the 1980s, an innovative and sophisticated way to market the University of Otago in response to a crisis in enrolments. Though it cannot have been the intention of its creators, it is now a wonderful historical snapshot of life at Otago at that time. I hope it brings back happy memories for some viewers!

Update – 13 October 2014

For those who would like to see the entire half-hour film, I’m very happy to say it is now available on the Hocken Collections YouTube channel (in 3 separate parts) – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChzpcDq9VcuDLMXaoJHklBQ

 

 

 

25 years of Cumberland

Tags

1980s, 1990s, 2000s, Cumberland

Part of Cumberland in 2014, showing both 1910s and 1940s wings of the building. Image courtesy of Cumberland College.

This year Cumberland College celebrates 25 years of existence. It is now a well-established home for over 300 students, but it didn’t get off to a very auspicious start – it was set up at the last minute in a building about to be demolished!

The building which is now Cumberland was originally the Dunedin Hospital Nurses’ Home. Designed by old Dunedin architectural firm Mason and Wales and built by Fletcher Brothers, it opened in 1916 to cater for the growing staff of the growing Dunedin Hospital. This was an era when all nurses lived on the premises and, as many had come originally from out of town, the hospital board wanted to make this a real “home” for them. The nursing journal, Kai Tiaki, gave the new building a rave review. It had “bedrooms of a sufficient size and healthy and comfortably furnished for each nurse, a large, well-lighted and ventilated dining-room, delightful sitting-room for the nurses in training, for the sisters and for the Home sister, a lecture room and library. There is a fine kitchen and its various adjuncts and rooms for the maids at the Home.” Particular features included the “handsome doors with stained-glass” and the “beautiful New Zealand wood with which the Home is panelled throughout.” The windows were “very large and let in all the sunshine which, especially in winter, is so much appreciated in Dunedin.” The wide balcony would overlook “a nice lawn and garden,” yet to be finished, and tennis courts and a croquet lawn were planned.

The future Cumberland College when it first opened as the Dunedin Nurses’ Home in 1916. Image from Kai Tiaki, October 1916, courtesy of Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand.

For decades the building served its original purpose as nurses’ home, with extensions in the 1940s to cater for the still expanding Dunedin Hospital staff. By the 1980s, though, the hospital’s need for staff accommodation had greatly reduced as most nurses lived out. The 1916 building was becoming decrepit, and the Otago Hospital Board decided in April 1988 to demolish it and use the space as a car park, rather than spend the millions of dollars required for upgrading and converting the building for another use.

Meanwhile, the University of Otago, with its rapidly expanding roll, was desperate to find more residential accommodation for students. It was already leasing the old Wakari Hospital nurses’ home from the Hospital Board (this served as Helensburgh House residential college from 1984 to 1991) and had bought the former Aquinas Hall, re-opened as Dalmore House in 1988. It now offered to lease the old Dunedin Nurses’ Home from the board and pay for its upgrade to meet current fire and seismic standards. As the Helensburgh experiment had shown, a former nurses’ home was ideal for student accommodation, requiring no alterations to the existing floor plan. The board, which would receive more income from this than a car park, agreed in September 1988 to the lease of the old part of the building, initially for five years. The board’s chair Michael Cooper, who also happened to be Professor of Economics at the university, noted that “it means one institution helping another to both bodies’ advantage.”

The Cumberland elephant, c.1996. It came from the Bowling Green Hotel (then Zouga Ballantynes), to the Dunedin Hospital creche, still located in the newer wing during Cumberland’s early years. It then became the Cumberland mascot. Image by Peter Walker, courtesy of Cumberland College.

After some very quick work and scrambling around for furniture, Cumberland House opened its doors to its first 145 residents and staff in February 1989. Warden Joy Bennett commented in her first annual report that it “started its year under extreme difficulties with building work incomplete, no kitchenette facilities and rooms requiring some or all furniture.” During the year snow brought down guttering and fascia boards, leading to urgent repairs, and residents sometimes ended up with cold showers as the old water heating system struggled to cope with demand.

Despite these difficulties, she noted that student morale was high in 1989. The residents may have been selected from the accommodation office’s “pool” of those not accepted by other colleges, and were generally of “average” academic ability, but they weren’t short of energy. Their student council was “extremely enthusiastic which led to a very successful social calendar for Cumberland House,” reported Bennett. The old tennis courts and lawn provided a great venue for ball games, and sports of all sorts became an important part of Cumberland life. Perhaps the best known former resident is Jamie Joseph, who played for the All Blacks in the 1990s and is now coach of the Highlanders.

Making good use of the tennis courts in 2013. Image courtesy of University of Otago Marketing and Communications.

In its early years, Cumberland was well down the popularity list for residential colleges. It didn’t have the history and reputation of the older colleges, and its facilities were rundown. But as renovations and improvements continued, its reputation grew better. The university purchased the building from the Otago Area Health Board, also taking over the newer wings. Cumberland was “considered quite presentable” by the late 1990s, noted a 2009 review! The turn of the century brought a new dining room and kitchen (meals had been produced off-site before that), leading to more satisfied residents. In 2005 the college took on responsibility for some of the university flats further along Cumberland Street, even closer to the main Dunedin campus. These became Cumberland Court.

Like all colleges, Cumberland has its own traditions. Residents take part in Colour Wars Day, 2014. Image courtesy of Cumberland College.

The historic building has created its fair share of headaches for Cumberland over the years. Though it was strengthened just before the college opened in 1989, a careful review of university buildings in the wake of the Canterbury earthquakes revealed it to be the most vulnerable major building on campus, at just 19% of new building standards. It was first priority for further strengthening, carried out over the summer of 2011/2012. But an old building also has character, and Cumberland College is not short of that. In 2011 its dining room was transformed into Hogwarts to celebrate the opening of the final Harry Potter film. The college also boasts its own ghost, though not everybody welcomes that – the university chaplain and a kaumatua were called on to calm residents after sightings of the “Grey Lady” in 2012.

Do you have any memories to share of Cumberland’s action-packed first 25 years?

Aquinas, Dalmore and Aquinas

Tags

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?