Looking back at history

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1880s, 1910s, 1920s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, art history, economics, history, law, library, Maori, politics

Professor Angus Ross engaging another generation of potential history students at the Taieri High School breakup ceremony, 1965. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Taieri College archives, AG-629-015/060, S17-542a.

History has been around for a while! It first appeared at the University of Otago in 1881 when John Mainwaring Brown, the new professor of English, constitutional history and political economy, taught constitutional history to a class of two students. It was a subject designed for lawyers, covering ‘the development of the English Constitution, and of the Constitutional relations between the Mother Country and the Colonies’. The course, compulsory for the LLB degree, was also open to BA students. Mainwaring Brown’s career was cut tragically short when he disappeared during a tramping expedition in Fiordland in December 1888. The university council recognised that it would be difficult to find somebody capable and willing to teach all of the subjects he had covered and appointed a new professor of English, with separate lecturers for constitutional history and political economy (economics). Alfred Barclay, one of Otago’s earliest graduates and a practising barrister, taught constitutional history for many years, except in the early years of the 20th century when the law school was closed and the subject wasn’t offered.

Harry Bedford, Otago’s first ‘English history’ lecturer. This photograph, taken by William Henshaw Clarke around 1902, was his official portrait as a Member of Parliament. Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, General Assembly Library parliamentary portraits, 35mm-00168-f-F.

In 1914, history emerged as a subject in its own right with a new course in ‘English history’. It was taught by Harry Bedford, who had been Otago’s economics lecturer since 1907. Bedford had an impressive CV; he was a brilliant local graduate who started his working life in his father’s tailoring business, served a term in parliament, and practised law while lecturing at Otago. The syllabus for ‘English history’ included ‘a study of the outlines of the History of England, including the development of the constitution down to 1900’, with a more detailed study of a different period each academic year. Constitutional history continued as a separate course for law students, and Bedford also devoted two special lectures a week to ‘Modern History, as prescribed for Commerce students’ from 1916. Bedford was an inspiring teacher and his appointment to a new professorship in economics and history in 1915 came as no surprise. Sadly, he was another promising young professor destined for a tragic death; he drowned during a beach holiday in 1918. With the times still unsettled due to war, the council appointed Archdeacon Woodthorpe, the retired Selwyn warden, as acting professor. But they felt the time had now come to separate the growing disciplines of economics and history, and in 1920 John Elder of Aberdeen was appointed to a new chair in history, endowed by the Presbyterian Church.

Though the Presbyterians selected, appropriately enough, a ‘conservative and hard working Presbyterian’ from Scotland as Otago’s first history professor, Elder brought considerable innovation to the chair. He continued an extensive publishing career commenced in Scotland, producing both popular and academic works on New Zealand history at a time when ‘it was highly unusual for colonial professors to publish anything’. His developing interest in New Zealand’s history was also reflected in the curriculum, which expanded to include more coverage of this country and other colonies among the broad survey courses on offer. He valued archival research highly; this was made possible thanks to the resources held at the Hocken Library, and Elder required MA students to complete a thesis based on such sources. His dour manner didn’t endear him to students, though, and he soon put a stop to a young lecturer’s introduction of seminar discussions: ‘These young men like to hear themselves talk but you’re paid to lecture … So long as I’m head of this department, there’ll be no discussions’.

William Parker Morrell, photographed in 1930 while studying at Oxford. Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Judith Morrell Nathan collection, ref: 1/2-197548-F.

In 1946 William Morrell – who featured in an earlier blog post on absent-minded professors – succeeded Elder as professor of history. He was a local graduate who studied and taught at Oxford and the University of London, and published widely on imperial and New Zealand history; he later took on the important role of writing the university’s centenary history! Morrell believed not only that history illuminated the present, but that the political state was worthy of study in its own right, and it was through his influence that politics joined the Otago syllabus, initially as part of the history department. Ted Olssen, an Adelaide graduate, was appointed to teach political science and classes commenced in 1948. Students emerging out of the war years and their clash of political ideologies demonstrated an appetite for the subject; it grew and became a separate department in 1967.

Like his predecessors, Willie Morrell believed that New Zealanders’ study of history needed to start with the histories of Britain and Europe, but an imperial framework meant that regions which had come under European control – including New Zealand and the Pacific – also appeared on the syllabus. Gordon Parsonson, who first joined the department as assistant lecturer in 1951 and remains an active researcher in his late 90s, was partly hired because of his interest and experience in Melanesia, acquired during World War II military service there. Angus Ross was another lecturer with expertise on New Zealand and Pacific history, though his distinguished war service had been in Europe. After many years in the department he succeeded Morrell as professor in 1965 and ‘steered the department away from the legacy of imperial history by making appointments trained to look at imperialism from the perspective of the colonised’. John Omer-Cooper, a specialist in African history, took up the newly-established second chair in history in 1973, while Hew McLeod, who became a world-renowned expert on Sikh history and culture, joined the department to teach Asian history in 1971. From 1975 a revamped curriculum gave students majoring in history broader choices; previously compelled to start with European history, they could now, if they wished, focus instead on New Zealand, Australia, the Pacific or Asian history.

Barbara Brookes and Ann Trotter at a Federation of University Women event at the Fortune Theatre, 1993. Image courtesy of Ann Trotter.

Under the umbrella of the histories of various regions, new themes began to emerge, often led by younger staff. Erik Olssen and Dorothy Page, both appointed in 1969 and both future heads of department, became pioneers of social history and women’s history respectively. Ross had a policy of appointing women where possible; although Morrell had also appointed a couple of women in the 1940s, men had long dominated the staff. The policy of recruiting good women academics continued and by the late 1980s they made up nearly half the department. In addition to Page, there were Barbara Brookes (another women’s history expert), Ann Trotter (who taught Asian history and subsequently became assistant-VC for humanities), Pacific historian Judy Bennett and long-serving lecturer Marjorie Maslen.

Angela Wanhalla and Judy Bennett in 2009. Photograph by Sue Lang, courtesy of the history and art history department.

As part of the new movement towards social history, Olssen embarked on the Caversham project, a long-running study of historic residents of southern Dunedin. Generations of honours and postgrad students mined the huge store of data for new insights into work, politics, gender, culture and society in New Zealand’s earliest industrial suburbs. Other new themes which became popular in the late 20^th century included environmental history and intellectual history (the history of ideas, incorporating science and religion), while world history provided an antidote to specialism in particular places and eras. A growing – if belated – awareness of the significance of Māori perspectives of history saw the appointment of Michael Reilly to a joint position in history and Māori studies in 1991. He later became full-time in Māori studies, but in the 21^st century the history department was fortunate to recruit two brilliant young Ngāi Tahu scholars, Angela Wanhalla and Michael Stevens.

History, like any other department, had its ups and downs through the years; funding was often tight and the trend towards lower enrolments in the humanities led to a loss of two staff in 2016. Art history joined the department in 2001, with a change in name to the history and art history department in 2008. Throughout, it remained a highly productive department with an excellent research record, ranking first in New Zealand for history and art history in the 2003 and 2006 PBRF rounds. It was no slouch in teaching either; in 2002, when OUSA gave its first teaching awards, history was the only department to have two people – Tom Brooking and Tony Ballantyne – in the top 10. As a proud graduate of Otago’s history department, I can testify to the great skills of its staff!

Recruiting a new generation of students, 2016-style. These secondary students, photographed at Toitū Otago Settlers Museum, were attending a ‘hands-on history’ course run by the university. Photograph by Jane McCabe, courtesy of the history and art history department.

 

Building a medical campus

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1910s, 1920s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, anatomy, biochemistry, library, medicine, microbiology, obstetrics and gynaecology, pharmacology, pharmacy, physiology, preventive and social medicine, surgery

An aerial view showing the medical school and hospital buildings, c.1970. The low-rise 1950s building replaced by the Sayers building can be seen between the Wellcome and Ferguson buildings, with cars parked in front. At the hospital, the clinical services building, opened in 1968, can be seen, but construction is yet to begin on the ward block, which opened in 1980. Several of the buildings in the block east of the hospital are now part of the university: the original Queen Mary maternity hospital now houses the surveying school and marine science department; the 2nd Queen Mary hospital is Hayward College, and the old nurses’ homes are Cumberland College. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, University of Otago Medical School Alumnus Association records, MS-1537/806, S17-517b.

There’s a significant university anniversary this year: it’s a century since the medical school opened its first Great King Street building. Otago medical classes started out in the university’s original building in Princes Street, but soon moved to the purpose-built anatomy and chemistry block (now the geology building) on the new site near the Leith. Opened in 1878, the new premises incorporated a lecture room, dissection room, preparation room, morgue, laboratory, anatomy room and professor’s office for the medical school. The facilities weren’t large – they were designed to cater for classes of a dozen or so – and the building was extended in 1883 and again in 1905, to provide for the expanding school and its first physiology professor. As medical student numbers continued to expand, from 80 in 1905 to 155 in 1914, space became desperately short and the medical faculty won government approval for further extensions to the anatomy and physiology departments, plus a new building to house the pathology and bacteriology (microbiology) departments, along with other subjects being taught in far from ideal conditions in the crowded hospital.

The site of the new building – in Great King Street, opposite the hospital – was controversial. Some university council members wanted all new developments to be on the existing campus, but medical academics wanted to be closer to the hospital, and the chancellor, Andrew Cameron, was on their side. Sydney Champtaloup, professor of public health and bacteriology, revealed the thinking behind the move during the 1914 public appeal for funds for the new building. After completing their studies in anatomy and physiology, which would still be taught at the university, said Champtaloup, ‘students are intimately associated with the Hospital. At present students attend some classes at the University, and have then to proceed to the Hospital for others, and to return to the University later. This involves a great waste of time and energy. All lectures and practical classes for senior students should be held in a suitable building near the Hospital’. He also pointed out that the hospital and university both required bacteriology and pathology labs, and ‘a combination of these requirements in one building makes for efficiency and economy, but that building to meet Hospital requirements must be either in the Hospital grounds or in its close proximity’. Although he didn’t mention it, Champtaloup would have to waste considerable time and energy himself if the new building wasn’t close to the hospital, since he was in charge of its bacteriology services.

The bacteriology and pathology building, later known as the Scott building, which opened in 1917. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, University of Otago Medical School Alumnus Assocation records, MS-1537/636, S17-517a.

The public appeal raised the goodly sum of £8000 (over $1 million in 2017 values), which included £2000 from William Dawson (a brewer who made a fortune as one of the founders of Speight’s) and £1000 from members of the medical faculty. It was matched by the government, though the project ran considerably over budget thanks to ‘the presence of subterranean water, later found to characterise the whole area’, along with rising prices due to war conditions. The new building, designed by Mason and Wales and built by Fletcher Brothers, opened in 1917. Of brick with Oamaru stone facings, its neoclassical style seemed quite plain to contemporaries; the Evening Star noted some ‘pretty stained glass’ in the entrance hall was ‘one of the few ornamentations’. The building was large and well-lit, with a lecture theatre able to ‘seat 150 students and give everyone plenty of elbow room’ and other smaller lecture rooms; they incorporated facilities for the latest technology, the lantern slide. The pathology department was on the first floor and the bacteriology department on the second floor; there were also rooms dedicated to medical jurisprudence and materia medica (pharmacology), the library, specimen museum and an assortment of staff and student facilities. ‘The roof is used for store rooms, etc.’, reported the Star with some delicacy; that was where animals and food stores were housed.

The new building was just the beginning. Medical dean Lindo Ferguson had ambitious plans; he imagined the school expanding to take up the entire side of the Great King Street block facing the hospital, replacing its collection of old cottages and shops. Not everybody approved, and there was another battle over the new anatomy and physiology building. In 1919 university council members decided that further extensions to those departments should be on the main university campus, provoking a determined – and successful – campaign by the medical faculty, medical association and ODT to have them change their minds and instead construct a large new building adjoining the 1917 one. Physiology professor John Malcolm countered one of the main objections to the Great King Street site: ‘It had been said that the social life of the university was cut in two through the existing arrangements; and if that were so how about the scientific life of the university? Was it not cut in two as well? The most important was the human life’. After considerable delays in raising funds, in 1927 a splendid new building – ‘one of Dunedin’s most handsome’, declared the ODT – was opened. Designed by Edmund Anscombe in brick and stone facings to complement its neighbour, it provided accommodation for not just anatomy and physiology, but also the ‘sub-departments’ of histology, biochemistry and pharmacology. It had the ‘necessary classrooms, laboratories, and research rooms for a school averaging an annual class of 50 students’.

At the opening of the new block, Ferguson joked that ‘if a dean were content he was not fit to hold his position. No one knew the shortcomings of a school better than the dean, and if the dean thought that enough had been done he should be pole-axed’. He continued to dream of further expansion, and had already foiled suggestions the new dental school building should be immediately next to the medical school; instead its new 1926 building (now the Marples building) was constructed on the next block. Ferguson’s successors took up his scheme and in the midst of World War II work began on yet another large building. It had the prosaic name of ‘the south block’, but later the various buildings were named after the medical deans, according to their chronology, and it became the Hercus building, after third dean Charles Hercus; the earlier buildings were named for the first two deans, John Halliday Scott and Lindo Ferguson.

The Ferguson building (opened 1927), with the Scott building (1917) and Hercus building (1948) in the distance. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, University of Otago Medical School Alumnus Association records, MS-1537/637, S17-517c.

The south block was in brick and of similar scale to its neighbours, but the similarities ended there; it was a striking example of art deco, designed by Miller White and Dunn. Hercus recounted how the Minister of Education, Rex Mason, ‘turned down our original severely utilitarian plan with the statement, “This is not a factory, but a national building of great importance, and it must bear the marks of its function”’. The new design incorporated various artworks, most notably a sculptured marble panel by Richard Gross above the main Hanover Street entrance; there were also plaster murals inside. Building was a challenge because of wartime labour and supply shortages; four Dunedin building firms – Love, Naylor, Mitchells and McLellans – formed the Associated Builders consortium to complete the project. Some students obtained holiday work helping with the demolition and ground works for the foundations, which were dug down 15 metres, but the foreman ‘had to keep his eye on them because many would jump the fence and be off’. The building opened in 1948 and boasted 210 rooms; it became a new home for the preventive medicine, pathology and bacteriology departments and had two dedicated research floors, one of them for animals.

The new south block (Hercus building) under construction in the 1940s, looking east along Hanover Street. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, University of Otago Medical School Alumnus Association, MS-1537/631, S15-619f.

The next building development was less imposing and not destined to last for long: a single-storey brick building, completed in 1956 next to the Ferguson building, provided a space for the surgery and obstetrics and gynaecology departments. Next to it, on the corner of Frederick and Great King Streets, appeared in 1963 the Wellcome Research Institute. Funded entirely by the Wellcome Trust, which was created from a pharmaceutical fortune, the new building was a tribute to the important research on hypertension by Otago medical professor Horace Smirk, and provided a space for various research teams. It soon developed the nickname ‘Hori’s whare’, while the dental school was ‘Jack’s shack’ after dental dean John Walsh and the pharmacology department in the old Knox Sunday school was ‘Fred’s shed’ after its professor, Fred Fastier. The Wellcome building was designed by Niel Wales, the latest generation in old Dunedin firm Mason and Wales, which had also been responsible for the Scott building; the new building’s international style, with its simple forms and lack of ornamentation, reflected the architectural fashion of the period.

The next buildings took the medical campus further into the realms of new architecture. In 1972 the medical library acquired a new home in the Sayers building, named for the fourth dean, Ted Sayers. The building, which replaced the 1950s surgery and O & G construction, also included accommodation for the medical school administration. A year later the multi-storey Adams building (Bill Adams was the fifth dean) emerged behind it, with an entrance from Frederick Street; it provided new space for the preventive and social medicine, pharmacology, pharmacy and surgery departments, along with the university’s higher education development centre. The Sayers building was designed by Alan Neil of Fraser Oakley Pinfold. A 1994 exhibition on University of Otago architecture suggested his ‘use of fair-faced concrete is an essay in Brutalism’. The Adams building was designed by Miller White and Dunn and the design was recycled in the microbiology building, opened in 1974 on Cumberland Street. The 1994 exhibition noted its utilitarian architecture: it ‘appears to have been designed from the inside out’ and ‘no thought appears to have been given to the external appearance .… Built in the tradition of tower blocks in a park-way, it does not invite inspection of detailing’.

The new Sayers (front) and Adams buildings in the 1970s. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, University of Otago Medical School Alumnus Association records, MS-1537/665, S17-517d.

With the 1970s buildings completed, Lindo Ferguson’s 1910s vision of a medical school encompassing the length of the block was fulfilled. Indeed, the school was already spreading much further afield, with microbiology and biochemistry buildings on the new science campus in Cumberland Street and new developments in Christchurch and Wellington. At its Great King Street home base, the school was a showcase of 20^th century architecture, from neoclassicism and art deco to international style and brutalism. Across the street, Dunedin Hospital, whose presence had drawn the medical school to this location, also went through multiple developments. That, however, is a whole other story.

A home for art and artists

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1910s, 1920s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, art, arts fellows, benefactors, library, physical education

Curator Donald Jamieson in the Hocken pictures stack, 1965. Photograph courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Box-240-004, S16-102b.

Otago does not, like some universities, have a fine arts programme; the highly-regarded Dunedin School of Art, established in 1870, is part of Otago Polytechnic. But the university has not neglected art: it has an art history programme, a prestigious fellowship for artists and one of New Zealand’s finest art collections.

That collection began when Thomas Morland Hocken donated his large collection of publications, archives, maps, photographs and paintings to the University of Otago, to be held in trust for the people of New Zealand. The deed of trust was signed in 1907, and in 1910 – shortly before Hocken’s death – the Hocken Library opened in a new wing of the Otago Museum (which was then run by the university). Hocken’s donation included over 400 pictures. Although his wife Bessie Hocken was a painter and photographer, he was not really interested in art for its aesthetics, but for the evidence it provided for research into his true passion, New Zealand history. The artworks he donated ranged from landscapes to political cartoons to paintings of Māori people and activities, and many included keys created by the Hockens to identify people and topographical features. Over the next few decades the library purchased further artworks and others were donated; the first published catalogue of the pictorial collection, dated 1948, included hundreds more works. Like the original collection, additions were mostly acquired for their historical interest, but they included many fine drawings and paintings. A great example is John Buchanan’s 1863 painting of Milford Sound. Linda Tyler, formerly pictorial curator at the Hocken, described this 1920s acquisition as ‘one of the icons of New Zealand art’; she recently discussed it on radio as her favourite New Zealand painting.

From the 1950s the Hocken pictorial collection took a new direction thanks to the influence – and generosity – of some noted art experts and collectors. Poet and editor Charles Brasch headed a new Hocken pictures subcommittee and – not without some opposition – shifted the acquisitions focus from history to aesthetics, and to include modern works. Brasch’s friend Rodney Kennedy made the first of many significant gifts to the Hocken in 1956 with 23 drawings by Colin McCahon. Kennedy attended the Dunedin School of Art in the 1920s and had many artist friends and a fine collection of New Zealand artworks; he was well-known around Otago as a long-serving drama tutor for the university extension department. Brasch, too, began gifting paintings in the late 1950s; both men gave further significant artworks during their lifetimes and by bequest. The Hocken’s important collection of McCahon’s works started with Kennedy and Brasch, but continued with gifts directly from McCahon and a bequest from his parents. Charlton Edgar, who taught at the Dunedin School of Art in the 1930s, gave nearly 400 works to the Hocken in 1961. This gift – known as the Mona Edgar collection in honour of his wife – ‘would update the Hocken with thirty years worth of modern New Zealand art’, wrote Tyler; it ‘changed the historical orientation of the collection irrevocably’. In subsequent decades the Hocken continued to purchase and receive generous donations of New Zealand artworks both modern and historical; by 2007 it held some 14,000 pictures. Those artworks have appeared in many exhibitions (in Dunedin and beyond) and publications and some can now be viewed digitally on the Otago University Research Heritage website. Dr Hocken little knew what he was starting when he gifted those 400 or so works depicting the history of New Zealand to the people of this country!

From 1966 the Hocken benefited from the existence of the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship, named in honour of one of New Zealand’s greatest artists. Modelled on the university’s Robert Burns Fellowship for writers, which had commenced in 1959, the new fellowship offered artists the opportunity to live in Dunedin for a year with a secure income and studio space provided; they had complete freedom of expression to work on projects of their choice. Anonymous ‘friends of the university’ made a large donation which endowed the fellowship, designed to aid and encourage painters and sculptors and foster interest in the arts at the university. The university was becoming an important patron of the arts, with fellowships for composers and dancers and children’s writers to follow later. Such fellowships were few and far between in New Zealand, so they carried considerable prestige.

Michael Illingworth, photographed in his studio by Max Oettli, 1968. Illingworth was the first Frances Hodgkins Fellow in 1966. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, P2011-027, S16-102c. Reproduced with the kind permission of Max Oettli and Dene Illingworth.

The rules stated that potential fellows needed to have ‘executed sufficient work’ to demonstrate talent as a painter or sculptor, and shown that they were ‘a serious artist’ who would be ‘diligent’ in developing their talent and would benefit from the fellowship. There was no requirement for applicants to have any formal education in fine arts, ensuring ‘mavericks’ would not be cut out. The university – or, at least, its selection committee – from the beginning showed a willingness to be bold and support innovative and sometimes controversial artists. The first Frances Hodgkins Fellow, Michael Illingworth, made the news a year earlier when his painting As Adam and Eve, on show at Auckland’s Barry Lett Galleries, attracted an obscenity complaint to the police. That incident cemented the painter’s frustration with the conservatism of middle-class New Zealand. A friend, the writer Kevin Ireland, later described Illingworth as ‘a person with a blunderbuss conversation and philosophy – he sprayed out and hit everything yet his art was so worked and jewel-like and carefully done’. The fellowship got off to rather an unfortunate start when Illingworth left halfway through his 1966 tenure, claiming he couldn’t work in the studio provided. The second Frances Hodgkins Fellow, sculptor Tanya Ashken, found Dunedin more congenial. Among the friends she made was Philip Smithells, director of the physical education school; she joined the students in his gymnastic classes and her observations of their movements and poses contributed to her new sculpture. Following her fellowship there was an exhibition of her work in the foyer of the museum (where the Hocken was still located).

Finding a suitable space for the fellows proved a long-term challenge. In 1975 the Cumberland St house where fellow John Parker had his studio was demolished partway through his term and he moved into an alternative in Leith St. In 1978 fellow Grahame Sydney declared the latest space, near the Leith, ‘a completely satisfactory studio’, but that one didn’t last either. The 2008 fellow, painter Heather Straka, noted that the then studio in Union Street West had good light and hours could pass without her realising: ‘Before I know it, it is 1am and I am still working’. For the past few years the studio has been in a prefab near the Albany Street music studio. Another challenge was funding. Although the original anonymous gift was intended to endow the fellowship permanently, by the late 1970s inflation had eroded the value of its income, along with those of the Burns and Mozart fellowships. The university held a successful appeal to boost fellowship funds, attracting donations from individuals and businesses, along with a government grant. In 1986 the university decided to withhold the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship for a year to build up its capital, but donations from the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council and M.W. James Trust meant it could be offered for a shorter term of 6 months. Since then, the fellowship has been awarded every year.

The list of former Frances Hodgkins Fellows is a veritable who’s who of the New Zealand art world. Many of the artists held the fellowship fairly early or mid-career and went on to great acclaim, such as Ralph Hotere (1969), Marilynn Webb (1974), Jeffrey Harris (1977), Gretchen Albrecht (1981), Fiona Pardington (1996 and 1997), Shane Cotton (1998) and Seraphine Pick (1999). ‘It’s flattering to be in such good company’, said Heather Straka during her tenure. ‘Everyone who has come through this residency has been of quite good note and has produced great work while on the residency’. Freedom from financial worry – for a year, at least – led to the production of many fine works of art: John Ward Knox, the 2015 fellow, described it as ‘a windfall of time and space and freedom’ to create. The Hocken showcased the work of each fellow through an exhibition hosted soon after their tenure, and acquired some of those works for its collection.

If you’re in Dunedin, take the opportunity to see some of the highlights of the Hocken at its current exhibition (on until 22 October). And keep an eye out for the exhibition to be held later this year at the Hocken Collections and Dunedin Public Art Gallery to mark 50 years of the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship. If you’re further away, you can still enjoy many of the Hocken’s art treasures in digital format – happy viewing!

Interim and permanent buildings

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1960s, 1970s, 1980s, chemistry, computer science, geology, library, mathematics, physics, technology

This year is the 50th anniversary of two significant university buildings. Ironically, the one originally called ‘interim’ is still here, while the other has gone!

The northern side of the new Library/Arts Building in 1965. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, S13-217g.

On 7 April 1965 the new Library/Arts Building was officially opened by the Minister of Education with much fanfare (complete with a student protest about inadequate government funding for university staff and facilities). The library, which had been taking up more and more space in the old clocktower building, now had a spacious new home, and there was also room for some of the arts and commerce departments. Those departments later moved out into other new buildings, allowing the library to expand. But as the university grew and grew, the library space became inadequate. Since the building’s design did not allow for any additions, some of the collections were moved into other spaces. Eventually the central library building was replaced by the current Information Services Building, completed in 2001.

Not far away from the library is the other 1965 building, now known as the Information Technology Services Building. It started out as the Interim Science Building. The word interim did not refer to the building, but to its usage – it was to provide temporary additional space for the physical sciences until their large new buildings were completed in the 1970s. There was a lot less fanfare over this building. I haven’t yet uncovered any evidence that it even had an official opening – its residents simply moved in and started using it in September 1965.

Though the numbers seem small by today’s standards, the university was growing rapidly in this period, making the old buildings woefully inadequate. The student roll jumped from 2000 in 1955 to 3700 in 1965; by 1975 it had reached 6300. As the Vice-Chancellor Arthur Beacham commented in 1964 when plans for the interim building were announced, it meant the university could avoid restricting entry into the physical sciences, whose labs were cramped into every attic and basement available.

The key feature of the Interim Science Building – a two-storey light steel-frame construction – was that it could be built quickly. The design, by Auckland architects Beatson, Rix-Trott, Carter & Co., had already been used for buildings at Auckland and Massey universities, though of course the foundations had to be customised for the site. The site was a particularly interesting one. With no space for a long building readily available around campus, it was built to span the Water of Leith. Once government funding was approved in October 1964, the University of Otago accepted a tender from Dunedin building firm Mitchell Brothers and, true to schedule, science departments moved in just under a year later.

The Information Technology Services Building, formerly the Interim Science Building, photographed by Ali Clarke, March 2015.

For several years the Interim Science Building provided extra laboratory space for the geology, physics and chemistry departments. In the 1970s, as the large new Science I, II and III buildings were completed, those departments moved out. The initial plan was for the building to then become available for expansion of the School of Home Science, but nobody had foreseen the ever-growing needs of another original occupant of the building, the university’s computing services.

The timing of the Interim Science Building construction was providential for the beginnings of computing at Otago. Space was reserved for installation of an IBM 360/30 early in 1966; this was run by the mathematics department. The large space under the building, where it crossed the Leith, proved convenient for the running of all the cables needed for the computer and its powerful air conditioning system. There were some disadvantages though. Brian Cox, the mathematician who became Otago’s first computer scientist, recalls that the puzzle of frequent false fire alarms was solved when they discovered that waterblasting under the building had accidentally stripped the insulation off all the wiring! Rumour has it that people waiting for the computer to work through a program sometimes passed the time by fishing out the window.

The Computing Centre’s first machine, from its 1971 ‘Notes for users’.

Early computers were very large in size, if not in data capabilities – Otago’s first IBM had 16KB of memory! A new computer, installed in 1973, filled half the ground floor of the Interim Sciences Building. Later computers were smaller, but there were many more of them, together with a growing staff to manage computer services all around campus, train users and carry out academic research and teaching in computer science. By the mid-1980s computing had taken over the entire building, which was renamed the Computing Services Building to reflect that. The building design had proved flexible – “hardly any of its internal walls are the originals”, commented the staff newsletter in 1986. Later, when Computing Services became Information Technology Services, the building was renamed the Information Technology Services Building.

Do you have any memories to share of the Interim Sciences Building? And do you know of any early photos of the building? The only ones I’ve located so far are in newspaper clippings. It’s hard to photograph these days because the trees have grown so much!

Another view of the ITS Building, photographed by Ali Clarke, March 2015.

A tale of 10 libraries

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1870s, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, Christchurch, Invercargill, library, Wellington

Hard at work in the library of the University of Otago, Wellington, in 2007. Image courtesy of University of Otago Marketing & Communications.

Last week my post mentioned the popular practice of studying for exams in the sunshine. This week I take a look at another popular student hangout at this time of year – the library. Neil Howard, who was an arts student in the 1950s when the library was in the clocktower building, remembers the “cosy comfort of the little cubicles where we could chat”. The “most terrifying place was the upper Oliver at the northern end where the real swots worked. Here silence reigned supreme, dropped books, coughs, sneezes, splutters were greeted with angry eyes appearing above the top of books while a spoken word suggested the imminent appearance of a bouncer.” The library may have changed, but the mixture of people chatting and “real swots” has not!

Of course a library is not just a study space, for a good collection of books and journals is critical to a university’s teaching and research. In 1872 – a year after classes commenced – the university library boasted just over 500 volumes, and fitted into a bookcase in the council chamber of the original university building (in Princes Street). The first four professors had purchased books, which were supplemented by public donations. The cash-strapped university spent very little on books, or their management, in its first few decades. The library grew to around 8000 volumes in its first twenty years thanks to books gifted by the public, the collection of a short-lived independent reference library committee, and the donation of the provincial government’s library after the provinces were abolished in 1876. The books were kept in locked shelves, with the university registrar, who also served as librarian, holding the keys.

The library received a big boost in 1908 when Dr TM Hocken donated his valuable collection of early New Zealand books, pictures and manuscripts to the people of New Zealand, on condition that they be managed by the University of Otago. A new wing was added to the museum (which was also run by the university) to house the new collection, and the university employed its first full-time librarian, William Trimble, to catalogue and care for it.

Meanwhile, the main university library remained under the care of the registrar in its long-term home, the second floor of the main university building (where the registry is now). Trimble’s successor, Beatrice Howes, was appointed in 1913 to be half-time at the Hocken, and half-time in the main library, finally relieving the busy registrar of library duties. The next big change came in 1935, when John Harris was appointed librarian. He was the university’s first trained librarian, and in his 13 years at Otago brought a new professionalism to the place, improving the collections, the staffing and the access students enjoyed to books and journals.

Eventually the students and books outgrew their library space, and there was no further room in the main building. A brand new library building opened in 1965 on the corner of Albany and Cumberland streets, strategically located half-way between the medical school and the main university buildings. It was an attractive space, two stories high, with a courtyard in the centre; the building also housed several university departments, which later moved into other new buildings, allowing the library to expand.

The 1965 central library was notoriously built around the property of elderly storekeeper William Matthews, who refused to move. His property on the corner of Albany and Castle streets was demolished after he died in 1967, aged 91. Photograph courtesy of Arthur Campbell.

Sadly, once the building was full it had no potential for extensions. Jock McEldowney, who was university librarian from 1961 to 1987, recognised this before the library moved in, and set about some long-term planning to help the library cope with the anticipated future growth in students. His strategy was for “controlled decentralization” – six physically separate libraries around the Dunedin campus, each with senior librarians and the capability to provide full services to students. This was a pragmatic solution, and it remains the university library’s basic administrative structure to this day. It was based around various libraries which had developed in an ad hoc fashion on campus over the years, and added one important new one.

Many departments had developed their own libraries, and some of these were quite substantial. The geographical expansion of the university, together with its frugal funding allocation to the central library, encouraged the practice. When the medical school moved from the central campus to its new Great King Street building (now known as the Scott Building) in 1917, the medical library was born and all the medical books in the central library were moved there. Medical school administrators took over the running of the collection; this later became a point of tension as the medical school and the library sometimes wrangled over the control of the medical library. The expanding medical library moved into a purpose-built space in the new Sayers Building in 1972.

The dental and law libraries gained new status under McEldowney’s library structure. Both were essentially departmental libraries which had grown along with their faculties, and got much improved spaces when their faculties moved into new buildings: the dentists into the Walsh Building in 1961 and the lawyers into the Hocken Building (now the Richardson Building) in 1979. The Hocken Building also provided a new home for the Hocken Library, formerly housed in the museum and part of the 1965 library building. Heritage collections do not, like other libraries, throw out their “old” books, and this made the Hocken especially prone to a need for more space. Its manuscript and photograph collections lived for some years in the former vehicle testing station in Leith Street, before all the collections were reunited in their current location, the former cheese factory in Anzac Avenue, in 1998.

The final library in the “controlled decentralization” programme, the science library, was a new institution, created out of the libraries of several different departments. This was a controversial move, with some departments very reluctant to lose their individual libraries; there was a major battle over Chemical Abstracts. But the advocates of a centralised science collection, with easier access for all students and a professional librarian in charge, eventually won out. The library was able to take advantage of the development of major new science buildings in that period, moving into its current premises in 1977.

The development of the clinical schools of medicine at Christchurch and Wellington in the 1970s presented a new challenge to the library. The university wanted staff and students in these campuses to have equal access to research services. Fortunately both cities had exisiting hospital board libraries, and Otago was able to pool resources with them to create joint library services for the university and healthcare staff.

Back in Dunedin, the decentralization scheme reduced pressure on the central library for some years, but eventually the continuing acceleration of the student roll made a larger building essential. In 2001 the magnificent new Information Services Building was opened, with greatly improved study space for students.

Inside the central library, 2004. Image courtesy of University of Otago Marketing & Communications.

The newest additions to Otago’s collection of libraries came with its merger with the Dunedin College of Education in 2007. The Robertson Library opened in 1981, bringing together the College of Education and Otago Polytechnic library collections. It is named after Bill Robertson, who taught at the polytech and also chaired the College of Education Council and the Otago Education Board. The university library now runs the Robertson Library, supplying services under contract to Otago Polytechnic as well as to its own students. With the College of Education merger the university also acquired the smaller specialist education library on the Southland campus.

From that single bookcase to ten libraries in four cities, the University of Otago library has certainly come a long way! Of course, there have also been major changes in the technologies used by the library, but that’s a whole other story which I’ll save for a later post. Do you have any Otago library memories to share?

Studying in the newly refurbished Robertson Library, 2011. Image courtesy of University of Otago Marketing & Communications.