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!

Letting theology on campus

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1870s, 1940s, 1960s, 1970s, 1990s, Knox, religion, Selwyn, theology

Reverend Thomas Burns, here pictured with Bible in hand, was chancellor of the University of Otago from its foundation in 1869 until his death in 1871. Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, reference 1/2-005013-F.

The University of Otago began in a colony of the Free Church of Scotland which was just a couple of decades old and, despite an influx of new migrants attracted by the gold rushes of the 1860s, Presbyterians still dominated the population. In this environment, you might expect that theology would be one of the subjects on offer at the fledgling university. After all, Presbyterians highly valued education and expected their clergy to complete both undergraduate degrees and postgraduate theological education. But as it turned out, the university was nearly seven decades old by the time it offered courses in theology, and these classes didn’t take place on the main campus until 1985.

Religion did, however, play an important role in the early university. The Presbyterian Synod of Otago and Southland funded some of the professorial chairs, including physics, philosophy, English and history, and clergy served on the council, with several filling the role of chancellor over the decades. And personal faith mattered to many staff and students, with Christian groups among the earliest and largest of student societies. Religion was a significant feature of society, but it was also a subject of much debate. It is perhaps symbolic that the man who claimed to be the first student to enrol at Otago, Robert Stout, was notorious as one of Dunedin’s leading freethinkers (he later became the first law lecturer, and later still Premier of New Zealand).

New Zealand was a country with no state religion and citizens of varied beliefs and none; the prospect of teaching theology raised the question, “whose theology?” To introduce theology as a subject, approval was necessary from the University of New Zealand, the body which set examinations and awarded degrees for all of the country’s university colleges. Here the proponents of university theology encountered stubborn resistance from those who believed religion had no place in public education, governments reluctant to court controversy, and some churches (notably the Catholic hierarchy), who did not want to see other flavours of theology taught.

Meanwhile, various churches established their own theological colleges in Otago. Anglican Bishop S.T. Nevill began educating Anglican ordinands in his home soon after his appointment in the early 1870s, and after many years of campaigning established Selwyn as a theological college in 1893. It was conveniently close to the university, where many students also attended classes. The Presbyterian Theological Hall started out in the professor’s home, where St Margaret’s stands today, in the mid-1870s, and was located at Knox College from 1909. Many future Presbyterian clergy completed a degree at the University of Otago before going on to their specialist post-graduate training at the Hall. From their foundation, both Knox and Selwyn also served as residential colleges for students in other disciplines. The Catholic Church opened a new national seminary, Holy Cross, at Mosgiel in 1900, and the Churches of Christ set up their New Zealand college at Glen Leith in 1927.

Finally, after decades of lobbying, in 1945 the University of New Zealand approved a postgraduate degree in theology, the Bachelor of Divinity, to be commenced in 1946; this required amendments to legislation. The academic staff of the Presbyterian, Anglican and Churches of Christ colleges became honorary staff of the University of Otago, creating the new Faculty of Theology. Their own churches continued to pay their salaries and classes took place in the colleges. As this was the only university-based theology programme, the faculty also offered extramural programmes to students from all over New Zealand.

An undated Burton Brothers photograph of Knox College. In 1945 the Presbyterian Theological Hall located at Knox became part of the University of Otago Faculty of Theology. Image courtesy of Te Papa Tongarewa, reference C.018128.

Not everybody who wanted to study theology or religion aimed to become an ordained priest, and there was a growing interest in study from lay people. In 1966 the university appointed its first lecturer in religion, Albert Moore (previous Faculty of Theology appointments were by the churches). This was a joint venture of the faculties of theology and arts, with Moore offering courses in the phenomenology of religion to undergraduates. The courses proved popular and the appointment of a second lecturer in 1974 increased options; it became available as a major for a BA in 1976. Phenomenology of religion, later known as religious studies, became a full department within the Division of Humanities around 1992.

Holy Cross College, Mosgiel, from a Muir and Moodie photograph, c.1905. From 1972 some classes for Otago’s Bachelor of Theology degree were taught at this Catholic seminary. Image courtesy of Te Papa Tongarewa, reference C.014129.

Meanwhile, the Faculty of Theology had begun negotiations to introduce an undergraduate degree, the Bachelor of Theology, to cater for a wider range of students, including people with no interest in ordination. For the first time, in the wake of Vatican II and with growing ecumenical cooperation, Catholics became involved, with the Rector of Holy Cross joining the faculty in 1970. The new degree was introduced in 1972, with classes held at Knox and Holy Cross (Selwyn had its last theological students in the 1960s). Students could also take papers in theology subjects as part of an arts degree, and numbers grew quickly. In 1985, with limited room available at Knox and Holy Cross and many students based at the university rather than theological colleges, first-year classes moved on campus.

Although the university provided some financial support to the church colleges (helping fund their libraries, for example), Faculty of Theology staff were still paid by the churches, despite the fact that many students they taught were not training for ministry. In 1991, when the government introduced EFTS-based funding, the university began paying the salaries of faculty staff (the churches continued to pay for the non-university parts of their employment) and also made a bigger contribution to the costs of the colleges’ teaching facilities. A formal agreement was signed between the university, the Presbyterian Church and the Catholic bishops in 1992.

Following a review in 1995, the university completely restructured its teaching of theology. The Faculty of Theology was merged with the Department of Religious Studies, and in 1997 the current Department of Theology and Religion came into being. The agreement with the churches ended and the university now had independent control of theology, including the employment of all staff. Rather than setting up alternative courses in opposition to the university, the Presbyterians restructured their ordination training programme (now provided by the Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership) and the Catholics moved their ordination training to Auckland, merging with the Marists to form a new Holy Cross Seminary.

Religion has a complex history at the University of Otago, and a post this length could not touch on all of the controversies involved! Theology, once a subject of much suspicion, is now firmly entrenched as an academic discipline, though its path to acceptance was not easy. Do you have any memories to share of theology’s Otago past?

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 best prank?

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1950s, Knox, pranks

The flight path of the 1952 flying saucers, as mapped in the Press, 4 March 1978.

There have been a fair few imaginative Otago student pranks, but the cleverest I’ve heard of so far is undoubtedly the “grand interplanetary hoax” of 1952. According to the handout given to participants, this scheme was “designed to cure the ODT of flying saucerites and inoculate that worthy journal with a healthy degree of septicism” (typos as in the original). The local daily had been irritating the instigators – all residents of Knox College – who bewailed its trivialisation of major world events and preoccupation with UFOs.

They came up with a detailed flight plan for two saucers which would fly over New Zealand at supersonic speeds from north to south on the night of 6 December. There were some pretty good brains behind the hoax. They included future professors of medicine (John Scott and Ian McDonald), a professor of statistics (Ross Leadbetter) and lecturers of education (Russell Cowie and Ken Nichol), among others. The students involved had by that date finished their last exams and scattered home all over New Zealand. They wrote or phoned their local newspapers to report sightings, detailing times, shapes, colours and sounds, and inventing wives, children and friends to corroborate their evidence. Their assumed names and addresses were never fully checked by reporters.

Reports appeared in local newspapers all over New Zealand and the Press Association wired them around the country. The ODT – which took the reports most seriously – sought some expert analysis from astronomers who commented that if the sightings were “not the result of collaboration (and they appear to be genuine, independent observations), then they constitute a surprising weight of evidence in favour of the supposition that some object did pass down the South Island at about 11 o’clock that night.”

The hoaxers were rather startled by the success of their stunt, which they kept quiet for many years. Eventually, though, some were uneasy that their reports were still being taken seriously by some people. By a remarkable coincidence, on the night of 6 December 1952 a United States Air Force bomber flying over the Gulf of Mexico saw some unidentified flying objects, and this seemed to corroborate the New Zealand reports.

In 1978 writer and researcher Brian Mackrell, who had kept clippings of the reports as a child, wrote an article about them for the Christchurch Press. Entitled “The night of the hissing discs”, this linked the New Zealand reports with the Gulf of Mexico sightings and even included a map of the supposed flight path. Mackrell wondered whether this might have been “an elaborately contrived hoax,” but the sober and detailed descriptions extracted from the published reports of supposed witnesses from all over New Zealand must have convinced many of his readers that alien forces had indeed flown over the country. Soon the Press published a follow-up article in which Ken Nichol, a lecturer at Christchurch Teachers’ College, revealed the hoax. The story also appeared in a 1994 article by Sir John Scott for the New Zealand Skeptics journal and in a 2002 television documentary. Some Press readers refused to believe Nichol’s claim that this was a hoax, and no doubt there are still believers out there.

Do you know of any great Otago student pranks? If so, I’d love to hear about them!

Anyone for mental science?

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1910s, jubilee, Knox, mental science, philosophy, psychology, St Margaret's, war

Professor Dunlop and mental science students in 1919. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Album 89, S13-215b.

In 1919, as part of its jubilee celebrations, the university commissioned Charles Armstrong to photograph its buildings and people. This image comes from the wonderful album which resulted, now among the treasures held at the Hocken Collections. It features Professor Francis Dunlop and the mental science students. I can’t help thinking there should be another person in the front row – did somebody develop stage fright and run away at the last moment, perhaps?

Mental science (sometimes known as mental and moral philosophy) was a significant part of the university’s offerings for many decades. It combined two fields of study we now think of as distinctly different: philosophy and psychology. In 1919 the mental science course for beginning students included psychology and either ethics or logic (deductive and inductive). The advanced class included logic (“mainly viewed as the methodology of scientific enquiry”), psychology, and ethics (“in its full extent, treated both theoretically and historically”). There was also an honours class in the history of philosophy. Eventually psychology emerged from the shadow of philosophy and the arts faculty to become an independent department within the science faculty in 1964.

Dunlop, himself an Otago graduate, was Professor of Mental Science from 1913 until his death in 1931. Like his predecessor in the chair he was a Presbyterian minister; he completed his doctorate in Germany under Rudolf Eucken, a proponent of Lebensphilosophie, a form of idealism. Dunlop was famous for his enormous book collection and his steam-powered car.

An interesting feature of the class photograph is that several of the men are wearing prominent Returned Soldiers’ Association badges. There was a big jump in Otago student numbers in 1919 as men returned to, or began, their studies after the war. One of the returned servicemen in the class (second row from back, on the far right) is Hubert Ryburn. Ryburn returned to his Otago studies after serving in France, eventually completing a master’s degree in mathematics. He then went to Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, finished off his training in theology in New York and returned to New Zealand as a Presbyterian minister. In 1931, while minister of St Andrew’s Church, Dunedin, he married Jocelyn Dunlop, the daughter of his former mental science professor. From 1941 to 1963 Hubert Ryburn was Master of Knox College, where he was renowned for being “firm but fair”. After his retirement he moved to St Margaret’s College, where Jocelyn Ryburn was Warden until 1974. She was a stalwart of many organisations and served as president of one of New Zealand’s most influential bodies, the Plunket Society. Hubert Ryburn’s most significant contribution to the University of Otago came through the University Council, which he sat on from 1946. From 1955 to 1970 he was the highly capable Chancellor of his alma mater.

Do you recognise any other students in this photograph? If so, please get in touch!

Students kidding around

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1930s, 1960s, dentistry, Knox, pranks

An uninvited guest at the official opening of the Dental School, 4 March 1961. Minister of Education Blair Tennent is speaking, with University Chancellor Hubert Ryburn seated at left. Photograph courtesy of Peter Innes (originally published in the ODT, 6 March 1961).

When Blair Tennent, Minister of Education, visited Dunedin to open the new Dental School building in 1961, he probably wasn’t especially surprised to receive a lively welcome from local students. Tennent was once an Otago student himself – he graduated in dentistry in 1922 – and a recent ten years on the council of Massey Agricultural College had no doubt kept him aware of student hi-jinks.

A group of about 150 students dressed as Arabs prostrated themselves on the ground before the ministerial car as it attempted to drive through the Octagon. They then carried a laughing Tennent shoulder high on a litter to the Dental School. The procession was led by a goat, which normally resided in a student flat. As the New Zealand Dental Journal wrote, its “well timed bleats later punctuated the formal addresses in a highly amusing manner.”

High spirits could perhaps be forgiven, for it was a great relief to dental staff and students to have new accommodation. The Dental School opened in 1907 in what is now the Staff Club, but moved to what is now the Marples Building (Zoology) in 1926. By the 1940s this was becoming cramped and John Walsh, Dean of Dentistry, began campaigning for a new building. After numerous delays due to competing demands for government funding, shortages of labour and materials, and changes of government, construction finally got underway in 1956. Problems with the foundations led to further delays, prompting use of a prefab school building to relieve congestion temporarily.

The building – renamed the Walsh Building in 2001 in honour of the former dean – has since undergone various renovations and extensions. It was designed in the Government Architect’s office by Ian Reynolds, supervised by Gordon Wilson, and is now recognised as an outstanding example of modernist architecture. The New Zealand Historic Places Trust registered it as a Category 1 historic building in 2005.

Tennent was not the first VIP visitor to the university to be greeted by livestock. In a famous 1934 incident at Knox College, Lord Bledisloe, then Governor General, encountered a pen of pigs just outside the grand front entrance. Bledisloe, known to be a pig fancier, took this in good part, inspecting the pigs and noting they were very good ones. Later, as the master led Lord and Lady Bledisloe downstairs from the college tower, the official party encountered another ‘Lord and Lady Bledisloe’ – two students dressed up for the occasion – coming up the stairs. A resident recalled that “the two Bledisloe pairs bowed at one another and passed on … I heard that old Bledisloe could hardly hold his laughter.”

Do you know of any other pranks involving distinguished visitors to Otago?