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!

Early Chinese students

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1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, Aquinas, Asia, Chinese, dentistry, graduation, law, medicine

Dr Kathleen Pih, photographed by J.J. Webster, Dunedin, c.1930. Image courtesy of Presbyterian Research Centre, P-A154.19-59.

Chinese students have a long history at Otago. I’ve posted before about the big impact that Colombo Plan students from Asia had on the university from the 1950s to 1970s – many of them were Chinese Malaysians. As the Colombo Plan wound back and private international students grew in number, Malaysians remained an important presence on campus. The late 1990s also saw the beginnings of an influx of international students directly from China – their numbers peaked at 700 in 2005 and remain substantial today. But there is, of course, a long history of Chinese migration to New Zealand and the earliest Chinese students at Otago were homegrown – people who had been born or raised here.

I recently had the privilege of talking with two well-known members of Dunedin’s Kiwi Chinese community – James Ng, medical doctor and historian of the Chinese in New Zealand, and Peter Chin, lawyer, singer, and former mayor of Dunedin. Both have fond memories of their Otago student days and generously shared some insights into the Chinese community at the university. James Ng came from Ashburton to Otago to study medicine in 1954 – he describes himself as being at the tail end of the first wave of New Zealand Chinese university students. That wave resulted from the changing demographics of the Chinese community. For many decades immigration policy prevented the settlement of Chinese women in New Zealand, so many Chinese men here remained single or left families behind in China. When restrictions were reduced during World War II more women and families arrived in New Zealand. Peter Chin, who started his law degree at Otago in 1959, was born in Dunedin as part of the “baby boom” resulting from the influx of Chinese women to this country in the 1940s.

While some pioneering Otago Chinese trained in professions such as dentistry and law before these became university courses, and Norman Lo Keong graduated in engineering from Canterbury, the University of Otago’s first Chinese graduates were in medicine. The honour of being first goes to Kathleen Pih (Pih Zhen-Wah). Born in 1902 in Antung, China, she came to New Zealand in 1908 with her foster mother, a Dunedinite who had been working with the China Inland Mission. Special permission was required from the Governor-General for Kathleen to gain entry to New Zealand. She went to primary school in Waimate and had her secondary schooling at Otago Girls’ High School, enrolling as a university student in 1921. After graduating in medicine in 1929, she returned to China as a missionary for some years. She later completed specialist training in ophthalmology in London and married anatomy professor Francis Chang of Shanghai.They worked in China, Singapore and Hong Kong before retiring to New Zealand in 1969.

The next Chinese student at Otago was Roy Ting Shang Law, who commenced his medical course in 1937. He finally graduated in 1947 – this was a period when many students took extra years to complete their course, and the fact he had to work to support himself and his wife obviously didn’t help the progression of his studies. Dr Law established a very successful general practice in Wellington and this had quite an impact on New Zealand’s Chinese community. Once they saw how acceptable a Chinese doctor could be to wider society, they were happy to encourage their children to study medicine. James Ng’s parents were initially reluctant for him to undertake tertiary study, thinking business offered better opportunities, but Dr Law’s success swayed them to allow their son to come to Otago, albeit not to study in the field which originally interested him – geology!

The health sciences remained the most popular Otago courses for Chinese students, attracting people from all over New Zealand. Douglas Ngan Kee of Whanganui became the first Chinese dental graduate in 1950. The specialist courses in mining and home science also brought Chinese students to Otago, while arts and law attracted a smaller number, most of them southerners. By the 1950s Otago was also enrolling students from Fiji’s Chinese community, while the Colombo Plan brought Chinese students from elsewhere, notably Malaysia.

Jocelyn Wong, an arts student from Masterton, and Peter Chin, a law student from Dunedin, are at centre front of this group of students at a St Margaret’s College ball in the early 1960s. Image courtesy of Peter Chin.

There was no special club or society for Otago’s Chinese students, though many took part in activities of the local Dunedin Chinese Association. Some also participated in the International Club, which was mostly run by European women students. Other than this, they took part in activities according to their personal interests – for instance, James Ng joined the tramping club. Like many out-of-town students he also mixed widely with others by living in a residential college, thriving at Aquinas, where he was one of the founding residents.

The biggest priority for Chinese students was their studies – their reputation for diligence is a long-standing one. Extra-curricular activities came second to work, and Peter Chin notes that he was an exception in his generation for the extent of his involvement in campus activities. His first year was “a disaster” academically but a great success socially thanks to his talent for singing. Along with a few school friends he auditioned for the capping chorus, and as a result was asked to audition for the sextet. Becoming part of this elite group provided him with an instant introduction into student society. He sang with the sextet for 3 of his 5 years at Otago, and also became capping chorus master. In his final year he served on the OUSA executive, having been selected as their business manager, a role traditionally held by a law student.

Peter Chin (right) with the sextet c.1962. Image courtesy of Peter Chin.

In the 94 years since the remarkable Kathleen Pih first became an Otago student, many of New Zealand’s Chinese community have followed in her footsteps. My thanks to James Ng and Peter Chin for sharing memories and photographs of Otago student life in the 1950s and 1960s, along with some stories of their predecessors!

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?

Masterchef, Otago style

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1910s, 1920s, 1940s, 1950s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, Abbey, Aquinas, Cumberland, Dalmore, food, Hayward, Helensburgh, Knox, St Margaret's, Studholme, Toroa

St Margaret’s residents, complete with crowns, at a special patriotic dinner to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953. Photograph courtesy of Dorothy Page.

This week the University Link hosted a quintessentially 21st-century event: a cooking contest, complete with mystery box, compulsory ingredients, celebrity judges and audience. This was not just any old cooking contest, but Otago’s fourth annual Residential College Chef of the Year event. Wade Kennard and Owen Newbould of Abbey College took top honours with their two plates: scallops with fondant potato, pea mash and red pepper sauce, and scallop ceviche; and rabbit braised in cola (the compulsory ingredient), served with Peking duck pancakes, salad and chilli caramel sauce. The Studholme College team came second and Cumberland third. Bragging rights went to Cumberland in 2010 and 2012, and to Toroa in 2011. The contest, organised by Otago’s College Catering Manager Gary McNeill, is designed to demonstrate the skills of these “unsung heroes” of student life, responsible for producing 2.5 million meals a year.

Everyday fare in residential colleges is, of course, not usually quite this lavish, but it has progressed a long way from earlier years. Producing good food for three meals a day for a large group on a tight budget is never easy, and until recent decades it could be very difficult to find an experienced and trained cook willing to take on the task. Studholme was opened in 1915 to provide a residence for home science students, and also to provide a venue for those students to gain practical training in institutional management. Whether or not this made its food superior to other colleges I don’t know!

College chefs have varied enormously in skill, and some regular dishes became notorious. In 1950 residents of St Margaret’s campaigned for the abolition of jam roll, composed of “flour & water & apricot jam”. The Sunday roasts under one particular St Mags cook were known as “cardboard and string”. In 1928 Knox residents voted that “the unsavoury indigestible unpalatable compound of dough immersed in fat plus bacon be excluded, banned and barred forever from the breakfast menu. Likewise the equally indescribable Yellow Peril.”

These days there is a wide variety of dishes on offer, but monotony was a real feature of the “plentiful but plain” food of the past. To a large degree this reflected New Zealand’s wider food culture, and many students came from homes which also served up the same basic dishes of “meat and 3 veg” at every dinner. Dinner at Knox in the early to mid-twentieth century usually included meat and vegetables, with a boiled pudding to follow. The only choice was between beef and mutton, and between rice and potatoes. During the 1940s rationing reduced food choices even more. From 1944 to 1948 meat was rationed, but by value rather than volume, meaning colleges relied heavily on cheaper cuts of meat, particularly sausages, to feed the hungry hordes.

Sometimes students were more conservative about food than their cooks. Many Knox residents were suspicious of innovations like muesli and yoghurt, introduced to their menu by new catering manager Sue Stockwell in the 1980s; they dismissed salads as “rabbit food”. Other residents appreciated the greater choices. By the 1990s they could select between one vegetarian and two meat options at every dinner, with a five-week recurring menu. Some of the colleges also added halal options to cater for the needs of Islamic students.

Some of the food choices at the older colleges may have been unpopular, but at least the food was freshly cooked. The new institutions of the 1980s and 1990s – Helensburgh, Cumberland, Hayward and Dalmore (the re-opened Aquinas) – had their meals cooked at the University Union via the cook-chill system. After Cumberland installed a full production kitchen and expanded and renovated its dining room for 2001, it was able to report “a more satisfied resident”.

Various colleges have developed traditions of special dinners – annual dinners, valedictory dinners, founders’ dinners, and the like. At a time when most students lived in their college for several years, St Margaret’s held a special joint 21st birthday dinner. And then there are the special dinners for one-off occasions, such as the coronation of 1953. Quite why Knox felt it necessary to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar in 2005 I am uncertain, though it did provide a good excuse for a party! These are occasions when the college catering staff have a chance to shine, and today they show a little more flair than they did in the mid-20th century, when the most likely choices for a special dinner were a roast with trifle or pavlova to follow. Still, the cooks of the past did not completely lack imagination – at the St Mags coronation dinner all the food had a patriotic theme, including the red, white and blue coconut ice!

Do you have any stories to share of memorable college cooks or memorable college meals?

The vanishing hall of residence

Tags

1980s, 1990s, Aquinas, Cumberland, Dalmore, Hayward, Helensburgh

Helensburgh House, from the University of Otago accommodation brochure, c.1989

Abbey, Aquinas, Arana, Carrington, City, Cumberland, Hayward, Knox, St Margaret’s, Salmond, Selwyn, Studholme, Toroa, University … these days there are 14 residential colleges associated with the University of Otago. The colleges (known as halls of residence until 2006, when the remaining ‘halls’ and ‘houses’ were renamed ‘college’) have played a vital role in a university where the majority of students come from out of town.

Each college has its own distinctive and interesting history, from the first, Selwyn College (established 1893), to the most recent, Abbey College (established 2008). For this historian, though, the most intriguing residential colleges – and also the most difficult to research – are those which no longer exist! One which might easily be forgotten because of its distance from the university campus is Helensburgh House, home to over 100 Otago students each year from 1984 to 1991.

Helensburgh was an ‘instant’ hall of residence, created at short notice in response to a crisis. Student numbers at Otago declined slightly in 1981 and 1982. Some of the colleges reduced their capacity and Aquinas closed. Meanwhile some old privately-owned student flats were demolished. When student numbers grew again, accommodation became very tight and in early 1984 the university accommodation office had 300 prospective students without a place to live. To avoid losing all these potential students, the university arranged to lease the former nurses’ home at Wakari Hospital from the Otago Hospital Board. Within weeks Helensburgh House was a fully functioning hall of residence, though the absence of a large kitchen meant residents’ meals had to be transported from the University Union.

Critic was concerned that Helensburgh House would provide “a bleak introduction to life in Dunedin” for students. The big problem, of course, was that it was so far from campus – several kilometres, up and down hills. Fees were kept lower than in other halls to compensate for residents’ transport costs. There were some advantages – the rooms were large and the grounds attractive – but the distance factor would always keep Helensburgh well down the list of most popular halls of residence.

In 1984 the university accommodation officer reported that demographic statistics suggested the current high level of first year university students was unlikely to persist for more than 5 or 6 years – it seemed unwise for the university to invest major capital into new student accommodation. Instead, the university continued to lease Helensburgh House from the Otago Hospital Board. By the late 1980s it was becoming evident that the demographic predictions of 1984 were inadequate, as an increasing proportion of school leavers wanted to attend university. The number of ‘EFTS’ (equivalent full-time students) at Otago doubled from 7000 to 14,000 between 1983 and 1993. In 1988 the university bought the former Aquinas Hall and re-opened it as Dalmore House (later renamed Aquinas). In 1989 the university also took on the lease of the oldest Dunedin Hospital nurses’ home building, previously earmarked for demolition. Thus Cumberland House came into being – like Helensburgh it opened at very short notice in response to a rapidly rising demand for accommodation.

Helensburgh House ended its life as a student residence at the end of 1991. It would have continued for longer had the Otago Area Health Board not wanted its facility back. In 1992 Cherry Farm Hospital – the board’s major mental health facility – closed and some of its services were shifted to Wakari Hospital. Fortunately for the university, the board had other accommodation available thanks to the move of its maternity services into the main Dunedin Hospital ward block. The former Queen Mary Maternity Hospital was converted into a new student residence, Hayward Hall, which opened in 1992.

It may not have had the bucolic charms of Helensburgh House, but Hayward was much more conveniently located close to the university campus. Glenys Roome (formerly Low), who was warden at Helensburgh throughout its career as a student residence, became warden of the new Hayward Hall, presumably transferring some of the atmosphere of Helensburgh to Hayward. In 1989 she reported that over the years Helensburgh had “maintained a very close-knit community with a friendly family atmosphere which is appreciated by students. Every year we have a problem at the beginning of the year with students wanting to leave because of the distance from campus, but once this is overcome the majority are very happy to be at Helensburgh and are very loyal.”

Are you one of that rare breed, a former resident of Helensburgh House? I’d love to hear more about life at this ‘temporary’ hall of residence!

Helensburgh House, from the University of Otago accommodation brochure, c.1989