A sporting university

Tags

1870s, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, physical education, recreation, sports

The women’s A grade hockey team of 1920. Back (from left): R. Patterson, W. Elder, G. Lynn, F. Barraclough. Centre: E. Stubbs, H. Sellwood (captain), Prof George Thompson (president), V. White (deputy captain), M. Morton. Front: E. D’Auvergne, I. Preston. From Otago University Review, 1921.

With the Olympics underway, it seems a good time to think about sport! The first serious sporting fixture at the University of Otago involved rugby, though it was a very different sort of game back then. In 1871 there were just 81 students enrolled at Otago, but they managed to muster a team for a 22-a-side football game against Otago Boys High School. It extended over several hours and two Saturdays and ended in a draw. George Sale, the young classics professor and an old boy of Rugby School, played alongside the students, and in 1884 he became inaugural president of the Otago University Rugby Football Club. Cricket wasn’t far behind rugby, with its first match also in 1871, against the Citizens Cricket Club. Cricket historian George Griffiths suggested this first match was ‘archetypal’, for it ‘began disgracefully late, two selected players failed to turn up, and University were resoundingly beaten’. George Sale was again one of the team. Enthusiasts formed a University of Otago Cricket Club in 1876, but it only lasted three seasons; a second attempt survived from 1895 to 1900. The university managed to scratch together teams for one-off matches, but it was in the 1930s that it again managed to get together a club which played regularly in the local competition.

Taking a break during the home science tennis tournament of 1952. Photo courtesy of Sadie Andrews.

Tennis was one of the most popular early sports, for it required few people and could be played by men and women together. In 1884 students petitioned the university council to provide a tennis court and it duly obliged; the students formed a tennis club and within a couple of years had raised funds to lay down a second court. The tennis club, like many, had its ups and downs through the years. In 1890 one of its courts had to make way for the new School of Mines building and this was not the last time tennis courts were to provide an ideal flat site for building expansion; in the 1970s the Archway Lecture Theatres took the place of tennis courts.

The Otago University Bicycle Club, featured in an earlier post, was founded in 1896, and a year later the University Gymnastic Club began meeting weekly for ‘both exercise and amusement’. By 1901 the ‘noble art’ of boxing was an important feature of the club: ‘It is a huge treat to see a couple of junior Meds punching each other vigorously’, noted its correspondent in the Review. The gymnastic club was very short of members though, and may have evolved into the more specialist boxing club, which was up and running by 1910.

Hockey was another favourite with both men and women. ‘The hockeyites are enthusiastic and promise great things’, noted the Review in 1905, when both women’s and men’s clubs got started. Otago women students were early adopters of basketball (known as netball from 1970). This new sport, which some found preferable ‘to the more strenuous game of hockey’ was taking off in Dunedin schools and church organisations. University teams played in local matches in 1915, the year that the Otago Basket Ball Association, New Zealand’s first, was established, and by 1918 there was an established university club. The Golf Club, consisting of ‘some thirty enthusiastic players’, got started in 1920. Later to start than some other sports clubs, but destined for a flourishing future, was the rowing club, founded in 1929. It started out using the facilities of the Otago Rowing Club, but by the late 1930s had acquired its own boats and had dozens of members. In subsequent decades the growing university was able to support an ever-broadening range of sports clubs, from archery and taekwondo to diving and badminton, and of course some students also played for clubs outside the university.

Preparing to set off in the men’s harrier race, 1952. Photo courtesy of Sadie Andrews.

Students didn’t have to join a club to enjoy sports. Many a scratch team was put together for a bit of fun, such as the regular annual footy matches between dental and mining students. Residential colleges promoted sports as well, forming teams and playing against other colleges. Soon after Otago’s second college, Knox, opened in 1909, it began playing tennis, hockey and rugby games against the first college, Selwyn. In 1932 they institutionalised their sporting rivalry with the Cameron Shield, hotly contested in various codes ever since. Arthur Porritt, an early 1920s medical student and Selwyn resident, recalled that ‘statutory work accomplished, we indulged to the maximum extent possible in sport …. “Billy” Fea and Mackereth – two “All Blacks” – were our heroes – and we rejoiced in winning the Inter Varsity Tournament’. Porritt was an outstanding athlete himself, winning a bronze medal in the 100m at the 1924 Olympics in Paris (famously portrayed in the film Chariots of Fire, but with a fictional character representing Porritt). Athletics took off at Otago when the Easter Tournament between the four university colleges commenced in 1902. Soon after that first tournament – hosted and won by Canterbury – Peter Buck (Te Rangi Hiroa) presided at the founding meeting of the Otago University Amateur Athletic Club. The club ran annual ‘inter-faculty’ events, where students of Otago’s various faculties competed for athletic glory; they served as trials for the Otago tournament team. In 1923 the athletic club acquired ‘an offspring’, the University Harrier Club, which held Saturday afternoon distance runs. The harrier club reported in 1930 that its ‘finest individual performance’ came from one J. Lovelock, ‘the best distance runner whom Otago University has yet produced’. Jack Lovelock, a medical student of 1929 and 1930, headed to Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship in 1931 and became ‘one of the most celebrated of all Olympic champions’, winning gold in the prestigious 1500m race at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Women harriers ready to set off, 1952. Photo courtesy of Sadie Andrews.

Otago students have become sporting stars in many codes through the years. Some came to Otago for its physical education school, which for several decades offered the country’s only sports science tertiary qualification. Many of its alumni became household names, such as netballers Adine Wilson and Anna Rowberry, rugby players Anton Oliver, Josh Kronfeld and Jamie Joseph and cyclist Greg Henderson. Farah Palmer first took rugby seriously after arriving in the south; she went on to lead the Black Ferns to three world cup wins and complete a PhD in physical education. But sports stars came from other disciplines as well. In 1998 Otago claimed a national ‘captaincy treble’: Palmer was captain of the Black Ferns; Taine Randell, a 1997 law and commerce graduate, captain of the All Blacks; and Belinda Colling, a 1998 psychology graduate, captain of the Silver Ferns. Completing a degree while representing your country or province in sport was no easy feat and some sports people dropped out or took longer than usual to finish their studies. In 1990, for instance, John Wright, captain of the New Zealand men’s cricket team, graduated with a BSc in biochemistry, completed after a 15-year break from study. In 2012 the university celebrated when two former students, Hamish Bond and Nathan Cohen, won gold for rowing at the London Olympics; both had studied commerce at Otago before sport took over and they switched to distance education via Massey University. The students’ association recognised its star sportsmen and women with ‘blues’ for outstanding achievements. It also provided financial support for various sports clubs and their facilities. One of the biggest OUSA investments was the Aquatic Centre, opened in 2002 as a new home for the rowing club, which had lost its old premises and boats in a 1999 fire. The splendid facilities presumably contributed to Otago’s long run of success in national and international rowing events in subsequent years.

University sport can be pretty casual! ‘Burgers’ playing volleyball in the spacious surroundings of Helensburgh House, a hall of residence from 1984 to 1991. I’d be delighted to hear from anybody who can identify the year this photo was taken. Photo courtesy of Glenys Roome.

Of course, most students had lesser sporting abilities, and OUSA also developed premises for those who just wanted to keep fit and have fun. Smithells Gym provided room for some indoor activities, but the needs of the physical education school took priority there. OUSA built its Clubs and Societies Building in 1980 to cater for a wide range of activities, and it was soon hosting aerobics classes and weight training. It quickly proved inadequate for the rapidly growing student roll, providing an incentive for the OUSA to take part in a new scheme proposed by the Otago Polytechnic Students Association. The two associations and the university purchased and converted a former stationery factory in Anzac Avenue into the Unipol Recreation Centre, which opened in 1990 and immediately became a hive of physical activity. The university itself developed a recreation services department in 1984, hiring out equipment and organising courses and trips. Recreation services also held the contract to run Unipol. In 2012 Unipol moved to a larger purpose-built space in the new University Plaza building, attracting a jump in student use. Soon afterwards OUSA sold its share of Unipol to the university, unwilling to commit more funds and confident that the university had student needs at heart. Student president Logan Edgar cited the famous example where Unipol had refused a gym booking to the All Blacks ‘when it would have limited the space of students attempting to work out’. OUSA put the proceeds towards a major upgrade of the Clubs and Societies Building (then known as the Recreation Centre), completed in 2014.

This shot of officials at the 1953 interfaculty sports, held at the University Oval, demonstrates the commitment of staff to university sports. From left: Michael Shackleton (medical student), Prof Philip Smithells (Physical Education), Prof Angus Ross (History), Stanley Wilson (Surgery), Prof Bill Adams (Anatomy), Dr Bruce Howie (Pathology), Prof Jack Dodds (Physics), Dr Gil Bogle (Physics). Photo courtesy of Michael Shackleton.

Throughout the university’s history, its students and staff have played an important role in local sport, some as participants and administrators and others as spectators. Indeed, cheering on the local team on the terraces of Carisbrook or, more recently, in ‘the zoo’ at Forsyth Barr Stadium, is an iconic part of ‘scarfie’ culture. This no doubt contributed to the university’s 2014 decision to sponsor the local super rugby team. That decision raised many eyebrows and attracted some opposition, notably from the Tertiary Education Union, unhappy with the extent of spending on marketing within the education sector. Fortunately, the university’s sponsorship coincided with a big improvement in the Highlanders’ results, and when they won the championship in 2015 with ‘University of Otago’ emblazoned on their shirts it was a proud moment for their sponsors. The Highlanders have had another good season, even if they didn’t retain champion status; now it’s time to cheer on our Olympic athletes!

An administrative note

Regular readers may have noticed that this blog post is later than usual. From now on I will be putting up new posts every 4 weeks, rather than every 2. That’s simply because I need to devote more time to writing the book this blog project arose from!

 

The class of 1946

Tags

1940s, graduation, recreation, sports, student health

Waiting for the capping parade to start, 1946. Image courtesy of Arthur Campbell.

1946: New Zealand’s population drew close to 2 million, the long war was finally over, Prime Minister Peter Fraser led the Labour government into a fourth term, Southland held the Ranfurly Shield and The Best Years of Our Lives beat It’s a Wonderful Life to take the Oscar for best picture. But what was life like for Otago’s 2440 students? I recently stumbled upon a survey of a large group of students, which provides some fascinating insights into their lives.

The survey was carried out by the recently-established Student Health Service. The medical school had been carrying out medical examinations of its own students for a while, but in 1946 the university decided to open a general practice health service for all students. It was initiated by the Preventive and Social Medicine Department and partly funded by a social security grant allocated for each student who signed up; it aimed to combine ‘preventive and therapeutic work’. By the end of its first year the service had signed up 736 students, and carried out a statistical analysis of 614 of these, for whom detailed records were available. The information, therefore, covered a quarter of Otago students of that time. It wasn’t a fully representative sample, though. Unsurprisingly, medical students were over-represented, accounting for 53% of the survey, when they were 28% of all Otago students. Home science students were also over-represented, being 20% of those surveyed when they made up just 8% of the student roll. On the other hand, only 15% of those in the survey were arts or science students, at a time when they made up 37% of Otago students. Presumably students at the ‘special’ schools, such as home science, were more likely to sign up to student health as they often came from out of town, and did not already have a local family doctor. The involvement of so many home science students helped sway the gender of the survey, which was 40% female when only 27% of Otago students were women.

A group of dental students clean their pride and joy, 1946. Image courtesy of Michael Shackleton.

The data reported on the physical, mental and social well-being of the students. In an effort to measure the impact of the students’ early environment and class background, they were asked about their home locations and father’s occupation. These reflected New Zealand’s strongly urbanised culture. Just 13% had grown up in the country, and a further 7% in a ‘village’, while 78% had ‘town’ backgrounds. A remarkable 44% had a father with a professional background, 28% were in business, 13% in farming and just 14% in trades. At the 1945 census, just 10% of married men engaged in the workforce were classed as being in ‘clerical and professional occupations’, so it is clear that the children of the upper echelons of society were greatly over-represented at the university. Ethnicity was not recorded, but birthplace was, and 93% of the students had been born in New Zealand – internationalisation had a long way to go! Most of the others had been born in Britain, while a few came from Australia, central Europe, China and the Pacific. 10% of students in the survey lived at home – presumably that included the 6% who were married – and 46% in residential colleges. Flatting was yet to take off in popularity, with just 4% of the sample in flats; 39% lived in ‘digs’, or private board.

The shadow of the war loomed large. The ‘SS War Bride’ was the science students’ float for the 1946 capping parade. Image courtesy of Arthur Campbell.

The shadow of the war loomed large, with 10% of those surveyed having served overseas with the military; this ‘might have a considerable bearing on physical and mental health’, noted Archie Douglas, the student health director. It also had quite a bearing on student life. Tom O’Donnell, a future medical professor and dean of the Wellington school of medicine, was just 16 years old when he arrived to study at Otago towards the end of the war, and recalled that the few returned servicemen in his class provided some welcome maturity. In 1946, a third of the second-year medical class had served in the war. Miles Hursthouse, who was in that class, noted that it ‘became known in that and subsequent years for the dedication and hard work of the students’. The older men, like him, ‘were realising a lifetime ambition and worked like blazes for it, thus stimulating the younger ones to keep with or beat us academically’.

One of many popular physical activities of 1946 students – tramping. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Otago University Tramping Club records, 96-063/036, S15-592b.

But it wasn’t all work: 64% of the students played at least one sport on a regular basis and 41% participated actively in clubs and societies. Reports in the Otago University Review reveal that 1946 was a great year for sports clubs. The boxing, cricket, golf, harrier, ski, soccer and tennis clubs all had successful years, and rowing, after a ‘lapse of some years’, ‘assumed its rightful place in the sporting life of the University’. The rugby club had more members than ever before and fielded 8 teams in the Dunedin competition; 6 players represented Otago and medical student Ron Elvidge, captain of the A team, was selected for the All Blacks. Other clubs and societies had varied success. The Review noted that the photographic society had come to a halt but the literary society had staged a comeback; the debating societies were ‘moderately active’. A new chess club was waiting for chess sets to arrive; the game had ‘a large following’ in the medical school. A new musical union formed a ‘long-needed union between the various musical groups’, with regular ‘gramophone recitals’ and several chamber music recitals in Allen Hall. A piano recital by Lili Kraus, a Hungarian Jew recently released from internship under the Japanese, was a highlight of the year. The dramatic society and dramatic club both staged productions, including The Black Eye, The Spartan Girl, Orange Blossom, a section from The Taming of the Shrew and a play reading of Blithe Spirit. ‘Ill-considered criticism is sometimes levelled at the Drama Club’, suggested OUSA’s intellectual affairs rep, but it ‘works under many difficulties’. The biological society and medical history society flourished, as did the Christian groups, which maintained ‘a continuity for which other societies contend in vain’.

The health service made an attempt to assess the ‘mental hygiene’ of students with a scale measuring their ‘temperament’. A creditable 43% were described as ‘calm’, 39% as ‘average’ and 17% as ‘nervous’. The nervous perhaps included the 8% classed as heavy smokers (’more than 10 cigarettes a day, or the equivalent in pipes’); a further 36% were ‘light’ smokers, while 56% didn’t smoke. Physical examination of the students uncovered a range of physical ‘defects’. The most common – each affecting 17% of the study group – were ‘thyroid’, ‘previous respiratory illness’ and ‘vision unsatisfactory’ (17% wore glasses regularly and 4% for reading – according to my optometrist those are very low percentages compared with today’s student cohort). The most common reason for students to consult the health service was a skin problem, while the greatest cause of acute sickness was ‘the feverish attack labelled flu’. Another problem ‘constantly calling for diagnosis and treatment’ was ‘the possible appendix’.

The School of Mines float for 1946 featured ‘Paddy’s Band of Angels’, a reference to recently-retired cabinet minister Paddy Webb, who declared that ‘the people should take their hats off to the miners’. The capping parade was a popular public event. Image courtesy of Arthur Campbell.

Infectious disease loomed large in the histories of 1946 students. The ‘common cold and its complications is the outstanding ailment of the student group’, reported Douglas, but many had previously suffered more serious infections. Half had experienced mumps, and more than half whooping cough and chickenpox, while a remarkable 95% had suffered measles. A smaller number had survived scarlet fever, diphtheria and polio. Pneumonia and rheumatic fever were the most common causes of the ‘serious illness’ that 9% reported as part of their health history. The threat of tuberculosis – for which the first effective drug treatment, streptomycin, was only discovered in 1944 – was a constant concern. 10% of students had been in contact with TB within their own family. The clinic conducted 270 Mantoux tests and 72 were positive, indicating those people had been infected with TB, though they did not necessarily have active disease (‘latent’ TB being more common). The other main tool of tuberculosis screening – a chest x-ray – was provided to 309 students.

The class of 1946 was clearly a hardy group. Though they came, on the whole, from relatively privileged backgrounds, these young people had grown up during an economic depression, recovered from a range of potentially life-threatening or disabling illnesses and survived a long war (some of them on active service). They worked hard and many of them played hard. The capping carnival – which had been on hold during the war years – was revived in full in 1946 and enjoyed by both students and community. There was an air of conservatism among students: one of the most controversial issues on campus in 1946 was a campaign to overthrow the traditional exclusion of women from participation in the capping show. Women remained behind the scenes in 1946 but would finally appear on stage at the 1947 show.

The cast of the Knox Farce, ‘Cameo and Mabelette’, performed at the 1946 capping show. Image courtesy of Michael Shackleton.

I don’t suppose the director of the student health service had historians in mind when he compiled his report on the clinic’s first year! Nevertheless, his broad-ranging analysis has survived to provide a fascinating window into the lives of one generation of Otago students. I am grateful to him, and also to some former students of 1946 – Arthur Campbell and Michael Shackleton – who have shared some of their photographs from student days.

Heading to the hills

Tags

1920s, 1930s, 1940s, climbing, recreation, sports, tramping

The 1100 or so students at Otago in the 1920s were an energetic bunch and a number of sports thrived, notably athletics, rugby, tennis, netball (then called basketball), hockey and boxing. The 1920s also witnessed the birth of one of the most enduringly popular clubs on campus: the Otago University Tramping Club. Tramping was just taking off in New Zealand in the 1920s. Walking for recreation had been popular for many years and climbing also had its devotees, but tramping, involving more energetic walks, often in the wilderness, was something new. Wellington’s Tararua Tramping Club was the country’s first, founded in 1919, and eight more clubs emerged during the 1920s, including the Otago Tramping Club in 1923 and the Otago University Tramping Club in 1927.

A group of energetic 1920s students with the summit of Mt Park in the background. From the Otago University Review, September 1925.

Groups of Otago students had already been out exploring the southern wilderness before the club began. The Grave Talbot Pass in the Darran Mountains is named in honour of two Otago graduates, William Grave and Arthur Talbot, who pioneered this link from Lake Wakatipu to Milford Sound in the 1910s. The pass would prove too strenuous for most tourists, but the valleys leading up to it on both sides were made more accessible by groups of students who formed the tracks, working over the summers between 1914 and 1925. An article in the September 1925 Review recounts their adventures of the last two summers, including life in campsites, on the track, and scaling mountains. They named a lake after George Thompson (French lecturer and chair of the professorial board) and a mountain after James Park (head of the School of Mines). Another mountain became Students Peak. An ascent of Mt Christina took four days, with the day they reached the summit fuelled by ‘an excellent breakfast of cocoa, porridge, and cold boiled kea’. Many will relate to their ‘perpetual war with the innumerable army of sandflies’! A newspaper article names those who scaled Mt Christina and Mt Park that summer as Kenneth Roberts, William Grave, George Moir, RSM Sinclair and Henry Slater, all former Otago students. Those who worked on the track in 1920 are named in another newspaper article as Merville Harris, David Jennings and Stewart Crawford, all medical students, and dental student Joseph Tanner.

These were strictly all-male adventures, but one of the joys of the tramping club was its accessibility to both men and women, with romance sometimes flourishing in the great outdoors or at the club’s social gatherings. The earliest reports I’ve found of the club are from 1929, when it was in its third season. The new committee elected late that year included Mr W.M. Stothart (the president, who sadly died over the summer), Miss E. Labes, Miss W. Fairbairn, Miss B. Dash, Mr B.C. Bellhouse and Mr Russell. That year ‘every holiday has seen happy parties of enthusiastic walkers out in the open country, which so fortunately forms the environment of Dunedin’. Some students might find mountaineering too much but could, as the 1930 report noted, ‘appreciate the joy of a brisk tramp, with its accompaniments of wood-fires and billy-teas’. Among the ‘scenic resorts’ explored by university trampers in 1930 were Harbour Cone, the Spit, Red Hut, Mount Charles, Tomahawk Creek and Chain Hills Tarn. Many of these were day outings, but some trips went further afield. In 1938 the club had ‘over thirty enthusiastic members’ who took part in day trips, two weekend trips (Mt Misery and Silver Peaks via Evansdale) plus a five-day excursion ‘to the various places of interest about Lake Wakatipu’.

Numbers waxed and waned, with some years finding more dedicated trampers than others; the club was always keen to recruit new members. ‘A good outing, providing both exercise and glorious scenery is assured’, stated a report in Critic in 1931. The club’s aims were stated in the front of its trip diary, started in 1940. It wanted to ‘foster tramping activities’ and ‘break down the barrier of interfaculty isolation’. It was also keen to ‘inculcate in members the canons of good tramping’. These included ‘a love of natural beauty and the outdoors; a respect for private property; a scrupulous care regarding fires; an idea of what is adequate in the matter of equipment and food; a sense of obedience to one and only one leader; and a realisation that a party must always keep together’.

A 1929 Critic notice provided advice for beginners on how to ‘dress for the occasion’. A ‘haversack is far preferable to a young suit case. On the longer trips women will find skirts rather a hindrance and are strongly advised to wear “strides”. Then again boots or shoes should be stout, comfortable and nailed; and of course do not wear a collar and tie, because it simply is not done in the best circles’. Clearly practicality was important, and the trip diary for the first tramp of the year in 1940 comments that over lunch there was ‘some amusement … at the President’s expense – in connection with his bootiful hat – a blue velvet beret’.

A club outing at Mihiwaka, 1946. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, from an Otago University Tramping Club album, 96-063-36, S15-592b.

In appealing to potential members, the club had a few prejudices to overcome. A 1947 report emphasised that it was not all about extreme fitness: ‘We are convinced that the only thing which keeps our membership below the 100-mark is the popular illusion that a tramper is one who steams round the landscape at a steady 20 miles per hour, bowed to earth by a Bergan of the size and shape of a young bungalow. This is false – such a figure is only to be met with in the vulgar and more pushing clubs, such as the Tararuas. We prefer to stroll gently along with fitting dignity, stopping for the regulation ten minutes in every half-hour. Of course we have a large number of young “keen types” in our membership, but many of us are completely decrepit.’

Over the years many people have been introduced to the joys of tramping and to the beauties of the natural world around Dunedin and further afield through the Otago University Tramping Club. There has been the occasional tragedy along the way, but for most it has been a positive experience. This post has concentrated on its early years – to anybody wanting to learn of its later history I recommend the highly entertaining book 45 Years of Antics: Adventures and Escapades of the Otago University Tramping Club, published by the club in 2006. This is a compilation of articles from its magazine, produced annually (with a few gaps) from 1960; editor Kevin Lloyd also tracked down a club trip diary from 1934 to include.

Among the brightest and the best

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1900s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, anthropology, botany, economics, geology, law, medicine, physics, Rhodes, scholarships, sports, vice-chancellors, women

James Allan Thomson, New Zealand’s first Rhodes Scholar, as he appeared in the Auckland Weekly News, 7 July 1904. Image courtesy of Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19040707-7-2.

The Rhodes Scholarship – one of the most prestigious academic awards in the world – has shaped the lives of some of Otago’s most gifted graduates. The scholarship, which provides for study at Oxford University, has been awarded since 1902 thanks to a generous bequest from Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes, an English clergyman’s son and Oxford alumnus, made his fortune as a mining magnate in southern Africa. He was an ardent promoter of the British Empire and played a large hand in African politics as Prime Minister of Cape Colony in the 1890s. His business ethics and racial views seem highly suspect today, but the purpose of the scholarship he founded – to promote peace and civic leadership by bringing together young people from the British colonies, Germany and the USA to further their education – remains admirable. The scholarships provide tuition and living costs for two or three years of study at Oxford; they are awarded to young people who demonstrate a combination of intellect, moral character, leadership, physical vigour, and an unselfishness which will lead to a commitment to public service.

There have now been 219 Rhodes Scholars from New Zealand. This country was generally allocated one scholarship per year from 1904, with two per year from 1926 until 1993, when the allocation was increased to three. Otago has a proud record of producing 61 of New Zealand’s Rhodes Scholars, and for some years now has been neck-and-neck with the much larger University of Auckland for first place honours. Rhodes Scholars are, by definition, outstanding people. All have interesting stories and it is not possible to recount them all here. Some feature in items produced to celebrate the centenary of the scholarship, including an Otago Magazine article and an exhibition at the University of Otago Library Special Collections.

Otago’s – and New Zealand’s – first Rhodes Scholar was a geologist, Allan Thomson. He taught at Oxford and worked in Australia before returning to New Zealand, where he was a palaeontologist with the Geological Survey before becoming director of the Dominion Museum. He made major contributions to the organisation of science in this country before his life was sadly cut short by tuberculosis (his initial diagnosis prevented him from taking up a position on Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova expedition to Antarctica).

A considerable number of Otago Rhodes Scholars continued their careers beyond these shores. For example, there were several from the 1930s – when there were fewer scholarly opportunities in New Zealand – who became well known: doctor and Olympic champion Jack Lovelock (1931), journalist and war correspondent Geoffrey Cox (1932), Oxford English professor Norman Davis (1934), and writer and publisher Dan Davin (1936). Quite a few, like Davis, continued their academic careers at Oxford and other overseas universities.

Arthur Porritt in 1923, the year he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship. Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, S P Andrew Ltd :Portrait negatives. Ref: 1/1-018584-F.

Other scholars brought their overseas experience back to New Zealand. Where leadership is concerned, the best known is Arthur Porritt (1923).  At Oxford he completed the medical studies begun at Otago and went on to a stellar surgical career in England, becoming president of the Royal College of Surgeons and British Medical Association. He was also a stellar athlete; his bronze-medal win at the 1924 Paris Olympics was represented by the fictional Tom Watson in the film Chariots of Fire. From 1967 to 1972 Porritt returned to New Zealand and served as the first locally-born Governor General.

Sir Arthur and Lady Porritt in vice-regal splendour for the opening of parliament in 1968. Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Further negatives of the Evening Post newspaper. Ref: EP/1968/2679/6A-F.

Some Otago Rhodes Scholars returned to their alma mater and took up significant leadership roles. Hubert Ryburn (1921) was a mathematics scholar and Presbyterian minister; he sat on the University Council from 1946 and served as Chancellor from 1955 to 1970. Otago managed to entice another former Rhodes Scholar, Robert Aitken (1924), back to New Zealand to serve as its first full-time administrative head in 1948. Aitken left his position as Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Aberdeen to become Otago’s vice-chancellor; he left in 1953 for a position as vice-chancellor at Birmingham. A more recent vice-chancellor, David Skegg, was also a Rhodes Scholar (1972). Skegg, who graduated top of his class at the Otago Medical School, relished the opportunity to study at Oxford with distinguished medical epidemiologist Richard Doll. In 1980, at just 32 years, Skegg returned to Otago as Professor of Preventive and Social Medicine, skilfully leading that department until 2004, when he became a popular vice-chancellor. He left that role in 2011, but continues as a highly respected research professor to this day.

David Skegg outside the Bodleian Library at the time of his graduation with an Oxford D Phil. Image courtesy of David Skegg.

Others also returned to Otago, sometimes briefly, and sometimes to make a career. A couple of recent examples are Jesse Wall (2008), now on the law faculty staff, and bioethicist Tom Douglas (2003), who remains at Oxford but visited last year to foster research links with Otago staff.

Athletes Porritt and Lovelock weren’t the only famous sportsmen on Otago’s Rhodes list, which also features two All Black captains, Chris Laidlaw (1968) and David Kirk (1985). For Kirk, like some others, the scholarship provided an opportunity to branch out from his original field of study. He was a medical graduate, but studied PPE (politics, philosophy, economics) at Oxford, returning to a career in politics, then business, in New Zealand and Australia. For Kirk, Oxford also provided a welcome respite from his celebrity status in New Zealand as Rugby World Cup-winning captain.

Cecil Rhodes’s will limited the scholarship to men. By the 1960s this had become a sore point, and from 1968 to 2000 Rhodes Visiting Fellowships were awarded so women who had already embarked on academic careers could also benefit from time at Oxford. Only 32 of these fellowships were awarded, so it is remarkable that 11 went to New Zealand women, two of them from Otago: archaeologist Helen Leach (1980) and lawyer Mindy Chen-Wishart (1992). In 1977 an Act of Parliament overturned the gender restriction and made the original scholarships open to women. Otago’s first woman Rhodes Scholar was law student Christine French (1981); since then women have accounted for just over half of the Otago recipients. The Rhodes Project, established by one of the first American women Rhodes Scholars to promote public understanding of female achievement, provides information about some of the Rhodes Scholar women and their subsequent careers.

Though Otago’s first Rhodes Scholar was a scientist, the list is dominated by arts, law and medical students; the most recent Otago science student to win a Rhodes was Jane Larkindale (1996), who majored in plant biotechnology and physics and is now a research scientist in the USA. Commerce students are even rarer, though Louis Chambers (2013) was a student of economics as well as law. Talented commerce and science students of today might like to consider this a challenge!

The lives of presidents

Tags

1890s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, international students, Maori, sports, women

A gathering of former OUSA presidents at the association’s centenary in 1990. Image courtesy of Hocken Collections, OUSA archives, MS-4225/306, S15-500e.

This year the Otago University Students’ Association celebrates 125 years of existence. To mark the occasion, I thought it would be interesting to look back at 125 years of student presidents. On 20 May 1890 a general meeting of Otago students decided to form an association and at a second meeting on 30 May it was formally established, with William Edward Spencer as the first president. Spencer, a 26-year-old postgraduate science student, was an “able and energetic” president. There was “no man who was more enthusiastic at [the association’s] inception than Mr Spencer,” commented his successor, Alexander Hendry. Like many students of his era, Spencer had a career in teaching. He had already worked as a pupil teacher for some years before starting university study in the mid-1880s and may well have continued to teach while completing his degrees in arts and science. After completing a year as OUSA president he became a school inspector. He later worked in senior positions for the Department of Education in Wellington, including 11 years as editor of the School Journal.

Many “able and energetic” young men and women have followed in Spencer’s footsteps as president, though of course there has been the occasional rogue among them. I’ve heard stories that one 1990s president, who shall remain nameless, could always be detected approaching by the perfume of marijuana. Others have made dubious financial decisions. Most, though, have been upstanding characters in a very demanding role as chair of the association and public spokesperson for Otago students. In some years there was stiff competition for the role, and winning the election required considerable charm, ambition and political nous.

As the photo of presidents gathered for the 1990 centenary suggests, the presidency was pretty much a male Pakeha preserve until the 1980s. There were some notable exceptions, one being the most famous former president, Peter Buck, also known as Te Rangi Hiroa, after whom an Otago residential college is now named. He was OUSA president in 1903 while completing his medical studies. He became a key figure in the Maori renaissance of the early twentieth century, represented Northern Maori in parliament, and was later a distinguished anthropologist. Another trailblazer was 1971 president Ebraima Manneh, the first international student in the role. He led OUSA during a turbulent year of student protest over the university’s discipline regulations. He later became a senior public servant in the Gambia, his home country.

For many years women served on the OUSA as “lady vice-president” – a role popularly abbreviated to “lady vice”. In 2006 the OUSA, which bestowed life membership on its former presidents, extended the privilege to Nola Holmes (nee Ross) as a representative of “all of the women who served OUSA on the executive and in assisting roles since our beginnings whose contributions, before the 1980s, were largely unacknowledged.” Ross, the lady vice-president in 1947, was remembered for holding the association together when the University Council forced president John Child to resign after he made controversial speeches about sexual and religious freedom. Finally, in 1983, Phyllis Comerford served as OUSA’s first female president and she was succeeded by another woman, Robyn Gray. Since they broke the barrier, a third of the presidents have been female. They include the only person to serve two terms in recent times, Harriet Geoghegan, who was president in 2010 and 2011.

Quite a few people served two terms as president in the association’s earlier decades, but only one has served for three years – the gloriously named Philippe Sidney de Quetteville Cabot (best known as Sid). Cabot was president in the mid-1920s; he had previously been president of the Teachers’ College Students’ Association. He was also one of the instigators of the national organisation, the National Union of Students, serving as its founding president. Cabot completed several degrees at Otago and overseas, eventually becoming a clinical psychologist. He was very good at sport, playing a game for the All Blacks in 1921. Other presidents known for their sporting prowess include Colin Gilray (1907 president) and Frank Green (1936) in rugby and Bill Hawksworth (1934) in cricket. 1988 president Jon Doig, the first from the School of Physical Education, became Chief Executive of the Commonwealth Games Council for Scotland.

Unsurprisingly, several presidents continued in politics beyond their student days. Besides Te Rangi Hiroa, the best known is Grant Robertson, OUSA president in 1993, who is now member of parliament for Wellington Central and a highly-ranked member of the Labour caucus. Those who have worked long-term for the association remember him as one of the most capable presidents. A few others from recent decades have directed their political skills towards the public service, with several working for Foreign Affairs and Trade: David Payton (1974 president), Kirsty Graham (1992), Chris Tozer (1996) and Renee Heal (2007). From an earlier generation, Doug Kennedy, 1937 president, renowned for his pranks and radical politics, became Director General of Health for New Zealand. Until the 1960s many presidents were, like Kennedy, medical students (though few of them shared his radical politics). After that medical presidents became rare, and in recent decades law and/or politics students have been prevalent among presidents.

Some presidents went on to mark their mark in the academic world. Alexander “Swotty” Aitken, the 1919 and 1920 president, was a famous mathematician. Others had distinguished academic careers in demography (Mick Borrie, 1938), physics (Jack Dodd, 1946), economics (Frank Holmes, 1947) and medicine (Jack Stallworthy, 1930-1931; Ken North, 1953; Murray Brennan, 1964). Many became well-known doctors or lawyers, and 1968 president Bruce Robertson was a Court of Appeal judge. Some, like 2001 president Ayesha Verrall, are at earlier stages of careers which hold much promise.

Congratulations to OUSA on reaching its 125th anniversary! Do you have any stories to share of former presidents? And I’d love to get in touch with Phyllis Comerford or Ebraima Manneh if you’re out there! (my email is ali.clarke at the university).

2014 OUSA president Ruby Sycamore-Smith was the 12th woman to take on the role. She is pictured during art week. Image courtesy of OUSA.

Student life in 1934

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1930s, books, clothing, film, food, home science, music, recreation, sports, Studholme

Margaret Foster-Barham on the 1926 Triumph 500cc motorbike she rode from Nelson to Otago. Image courtesy of Judy Hogg.

“At present I am full of ‘pep’ with lots of good resolutions for work, health, exercise, thoughts & deeds.” So begins the 1934 diary of Margaret Foster-Barham as she commenced her final year of study for the three-year Diploma in Home Science at Otago. Margaret lived at Lower Studholme, the original Studholme building (where Unicol is today). As a senior resident she now had the luxury of a room to herself, though she had mixed feelings about that. “It’s rather a pity all the old wives are so far away. However perhaps it will be better not to see too much of them. Their talk upon dress & men becomes a little irksome.”

The freshers’ welcome, held at Upper Studholme, was an enjoyable event. Margaret was impressed with the supper and recorded the menu “as it might be a suggestion for some other time.” The students indulged in oyster and salmon patties with green peas, Parker House rolls, sandwiches, peach ice cream, coffee, salted almonds and other nuts. The Dean of Home Science, the impressive American Ann Strong, then gave a talk about her recent trip, showing “photos on a moving camera.” Strong had also brought back from her trip “a fascinating new gong” for Studholme, “on which different calls can be played.” Margaret found the Dean “most inspiring”, as she “expresses ideals in just the manner I would put things if I could.”

Margaret found her workload pretty heavy at times. As part of the practical element of her home science course she took her turn, paired with another student, at housekeeping at Studholme, which included a stint of cooking dinner over Easter. Later in the year she “nearly bust with pride” when she got 80% in nutrition. Then there was dressmaking. The students all made a “body,” a basic pattern to fit their own measurements, to be used as a basis for other patterns. Margaret’s diary reveals that body image is not a new problem. “I have been working at the old body,” she wrote in March. “She is looking quite nice, though is alarmingly big. It’s rather a good thing we can’t see ourselves as others see us!!” Her sewing projects included a green woollen dress and a peach velvet dress. A green silk dress was “not too successful. Brassiere kept slipping & also straps. Very maternal effect!”

But Margaret’s life was not all work; she socialised regularly with friends, both male and female. She particularly enjoyed the “pictures”, which she attended frequently. Favourites she saw in 1934 included Bitter Sweet, starring Anna Neagle, and The Song of Songs, which Margaret found “very beautiful … in excellent taste.” It starred Marlene Dietrich: “I love her voice & figure.” Wednesday nights at the musical society were another regular highlight: “It is great fun. We are doing a very jolly ballad of Gustav Holst, called King Estmere.” There was also time for a little light reading. One favourite was “a jolly little book”: The Small Dark Man by Irish writer Maurice Walsh. It was “light & well written” and Margaret noted it would  be “rather a nice book to give for a present.”

Margaret Foster-Barham. Photograph courtesy of Judy Hogg.

Margaret also enjoyed more energetic pursuits, such as tennis, though she noted that her “tennis needs much improvement.” An outing with her friend Tony to watch motorbike racing was “exciting in patches but for the most part boring & cold.” Motorbikes were, however, an important influence in Margaret’s life. She rode her Triumph from her family home in Nelson to university, and later to her teaching job at a Canterbury school. On one occasion she fell off in the gravel at Oaro just south of Kaikoura. Local farmer Owen Stanford rescued her from the ditch and, as daughter Judy explains, Margaret showed her gratitude by marrying him!

In 1934 there were only 1237 students at the University of Otago, including 79 studying home science. Just 319 – a quarter – of Otago students were women. The campus was clearly a very different place from today, but some things don’t change. Students still struggle to balance work and play, celebrate when they get good marks, enjoy socialising and movies and music, have adventures getting from A to B, and analyse the quality of residential college food. My heartfelt thanks to Judy Hogg for sharing her mother’s charming diary and allowing us a peek into one woman’s experience of life at Otago eighty years ago!

 

Sporting gentlemen

Tags

1890s, cycling, recreation, sports

The Otago University Cycling Club, circa 1897. Image courtesy of Hocken Collections, S13-245.

It’s a big sporting week in Dunedin, with a Bledisloe Cup match here next Saturday, so it seems appropriate that this week’s blog post should be about sport. This wonderful photograph from the Hocken features one of the most popular sports of the late nineteenth century, cycling. The 1890s was the “golden age” of cycling. Improvements to bicycle design, such as the pneumatic tyre, rear wheel drive and diamond-shaped frame, made riding more efficient and comfortable, and bikes really took off as a means of transport and recreation.

The Otago University Cycling Club was formed in 1896 and was one of several local cycling clubs, among them the large Otago and Dunedin clubs, and the smaller Mimiro Ladies’ Club, High School Club and Railways Club. Several hundred riders took part in the combined ride for the official opening of the season in October 1897. This photograph was taken around that year, perhaps before the university club’s own handicap road race in July. Though there is a glaring absence of women here, another photograph of the club from around the same period does include two women, so they were not excluded from membership.

Herbert Black, a School of Mines student, won the 18-mile race from Outram to Mosgiel and back by way of Allanton with a time of 53 minutes. He is seated second from the right in the middle row of the photograph. Seated on Black’s right is medical student Thomas Will, who was club captain that year. The blurry figure seated on the far right is Edward Howlison. He does not seem to have been a university student or staff member, but was a very important figure in the Dunedin cycling community. Around 1895 he went into partnership with Frederick Cooke to manufacture and sell bicycles – the firm later expanded to sell motor vehicles and Cooke Howlison remains a major vehicle dealer in Dunedin to this day.

The second-place getter in the 1897 race, law student William Downie Stewart, is standing fifth from left, with another law student, Leslie Williams, on his left. Stewart later had a notable career as a lawyer and politician, serving in cabinet for many years. Another well-known politician appears in this photograph – the gentleman with cane and splendid moustache standing second from the right is parliamentarian James Allen (later Sir James). He was a life member of the University Council and later served as Chancellor; he was also a long-serving cabinet minister in the Reform Government and Minister of Defence during World War I. He was a vice-president of the cycling club, together with several members of the university staff; this was probably an honorary role, though Allen was a keen sportsman who had represented Otago in rugby. Another gentleman not dressed for cycling, standing next to Allen on the far right, is law lecturer William Milne.

The club’s first captain, seated on the ground at front left, was John McPhee. Like many early Otago students he was a school teacher who studied at university part-time – he completed three years of terms but does not seem to have ever graduated. Only two other people in the photograph have been identified. Just in front of the door, in bowler hat with head in profile, is Dr Macpherson, and the man standing fourth from the right is Mr Fogo. If you know anything about these two men, or if you can identify anybody else here, I’d love to hear from you!