PERIODICAL NEWSLETTER OF THE GRADUATE UNION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE INCORPORATED P RINT P OST
APPROVED
F EBRUARY 2002
PP337834/00022
V OLUME 55, N O . 1
www.graduatehouse.com.au
R EG . A SS . N O . A0023234B
A new view for Graduate House At last the hoardings are down and University Square is officially opened. The outlook from Graduate House is now of trees, elegant walks and the promise of vine-covered arches. The Faculty of Law and some departments of Engineering and Science are moving into the new buildings surrounding the Square and the Faculty of Arts has returned to its origins, the University Quadrangle. TheVice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Gilbert (left) is pictured here at the official opening of the Square with our President, Frank Lees and his grandsons,Warren and Simon Hawkes.
The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Gilbert (left) is pictured here at the official opening of the Square with our President, Frank Lees and his grandsons, Warren and Simon Hawkes.
Arts returns to the University quadrangle By Professor Stuart Macintyre – Dean of the Faculty Early this year the Faculty of Law will vacate the University Quadrangle and move down to the southern-most building of the new University Square. That Faculty’s connections with the Quadrangle go back to 1857 when the first lectures in law were offered there. The connections can be traced back even earlier. William Edward Hearn, who became the first Dean of Law in 1873, arrived in Melbourne in 1855 as the foundation professor of modern history and literature, political economy and logic. He took up residence in the eastern wing of what would become (with the completion of its northern wing at the end of 1856) the University Quadrangle. By 1857 he had managed to reduce the responsibilities of the chair to the subjects of history and political economy, but earlier still Hearn had demonstrated his versatility when the foundation professor of classics and ancient history died before he was able to offer a lecture. Hearn filled in by teaching classics until the new professor arrived in 1856. The new professor was Martin Howy Irving and he gave lectures not just in Greek and Latin but English and logic. So in these early years both classics and philosophy were taught in the University’s original building. Hearn and Irving both taught and lived in the Quadrangle along with their families.
The light of Hearn’s lamp could be seen in his study window on the upper floor when the University was in darkness. During the nineteenth century the Quadrangle was often called simply ‘the University’. The early twentieth century, as other faculties moved out to their own premises, it became known as ‘the Main Building’. The Arts Faculty kept up its occupancy of the Quadrangle until the end of the Great War when it moved into a new building known as New Arts. New Arts is now called Old Arts and it contains just two of the Faculty’s departments. The Quadrangle provided for many other activities including student organisations such as the Princess Ida Club, which met in Hearn’s former study. When the Baillieu Library was built in the 1950s and the old library was turned into the Law Library, the Faculty of Law was left in sole occupancy. For the most recent generations the Quadrangle is known as the Law Quadrangle. After the Faculty of Law moves south, the Quadrangle will once again become the home of classics and philosophy. The Philosophy Department and its Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics will take most of the space: classicists and archaeologists from the School of Fine Arts, Classics and Archaeology will occupy part of the eastern wing.
The University Library will also benefit from the changes. It will make use of the present law library on the northern side of the Quadrangle for its special collections which are a precious resource for students of the humanities. There are also plans to remove the buildings that were subsequently added to the northern side of the Quadrangle, the Bookroom on the western side and the Scarborough Wing on the eastern side, so that the imposing original façade can once again be appreciated. The reallocation of accommodation in the University’s first and most important building has both historical resonance and practical utility. The Vice-Chancellor and the Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor have taken a