Trinity College Newsletter, vol 1 no 5, June 1970

TRINITY News /effet COLLEGE A PUBLICATION OF TRINITY COLLEGE WITHIN THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE No. 5

JUNE, 1970

1870-1970 In the late afternoon of 10th February, a reception was held in the garden behind Leeper to mark the Centenary of the Laying of the Foundation Stone. The College was honoured by the presence of His Excellency the Governor and Lady Delacombe, and other special guests included the Deputy-Chancellor and Mrs. Weickhardt, the Vice-Chancellor and Mrs. Derham, Sir Brian and Lady Hone, and the Dean of Melbourne, the Very Reverend Tom Thomas. His Grace the Archbishop of Melbourne, President of the Council, assisted the Warden to receive the guests.

The President of the College Council (the Most Rev. Frank Woods) lowers the jar into the concrete cavity to be covered by the stone inscribed "1870 1970". The precise location of the Foundation Stone and the jar buried in 1870 is not known.

HARKNESS FELLOW A past Senior Student and current Resident Tutor in Engineering, Mr. W. D. T. Cowan, B.E., B.Comm., elder son of the former Warden, has won a valuable Harkness Fellowship as a result of which he will be off to the United States in June to study at the Harvard School of Business Management.

1851 SCHOLAR Mr. G. A. Heath (1963) has been elected a Scholar of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. This is a rare science research honour. He will study under Professor J. Chatt, F.R.S., at the University of Sussex in Inorganic Chemistry.

NEW MANAGER Mr. Michael Mellenfield was appointed Domestic and Catering Manager of the College from 1st March.

Born in England, he has served in the R.A.F. and in hotel and hospital catering positions. At the end of 1969 Mr. Mellenfield resigned as a Warrant Officer (Caterer) in the R.A.A.F. where he had served for twenty years.

WILL YOU JOIN THE UNION OF THE FLEUR-DE-LYS? All former members of the College are warmly invited to join the Union of the Fleurde-Lys if they have not already done so. If you wish to join, please contact the Honorary Secretary, Mr. H. Graham, c/o Madden, Butler, Elder & Graham, 31 Queen St., Melbourne 3000. The annual membership fee is $1, the fee for life membership is $16.80. ..

Formal proceedings were short. The Warden related what had happened when the Foundation Stone was laid one hundred years previously, drawing upon contemporary newspaper accounts. The President spoke of the work of the College and offered prayers. And then a portion of the original ceremony was reenacted: a Latin commemoration of the occasion was read by Mr. Frank Callaway, a Resident Tutor (who had composed it), and the scroll, together with College documents, a newspaper of the day and coins of the realm, was sealed in a jar which was placed by the President in a cavity prepared for it beside

Leeper; a simple stone of Tasmanian granite (Leeper is faced with Tasmanian free stone) inscribed "1870-1970" marks the spot. Finally, the Master of Ormond, as Senior Head of College, proposed a toast to Trinity in a witty and elegant speech.

The weather was perfect, the gardens beautiful after so mild a summer, and the whole occasion went off very happily.

Of course, our main Centenary celebrations will occur in 1972—it was in 1872 when the first students were admitted to residence and the Life of the College really began.

THE BUILDING PROGRAMME The last Newslette1 described in some detail the renovation programme for the Clarke Building, the first stage of which was then upon the point of completion.

When the Fourth Report of the Australian Universities Commission was published in August, 1969, we learned with dismay that the Commission had not recommended grants to finish the work.

After long and careful consideration, however, the Council resolved that the renovation should nevertheless be carried through, and this was done over the last Long Vacation. While we are very pleased with the results, the Commission's decision meant that the project has represented a far greater drain upon the College's own funds than we had anticipated; the second stage (for which we had to go it alone) cost in the order of $50,000.

The whole episode, in both its achievements and its set-backs, underlines the importance of our current Appeal; it has been heartening and helpful that a number of our original donors have increased their gifts.

The Commission has also rejected our proposal for a new building to the west of Clarke, as described in the Appeal brochure. It is not the practice of the Commission to give reasons for its decisions, so that it is unclear to us why the proposal did not commend itself. The possibility that it might be accepted in a later triennium, however, is not foreclosed. Our Submission to the Commission for the triennium 1973-1975 must be lodged this year, and the Executive and Finance Committee of the Council is currently considering the matter. The needs which the new building was designed to meet remain as real as ever: more tutorial and conference facilities,

married accommodation, additional student places to make our operations more economic. Renovation, too, must proceed. There certainly will be projects to put to the Commission and the support of Appeal funds remains essential.

To end on a more cheerful note, the Commission did demonstrate late in 1969 that it still loves us. Quite unexpectedly, it made available a sum of money to complete the renovation of the Behan bathrooms, and the work there was finished in time to give us a happy Christmas.

COLLEGE APPEAL S

-150,000.00 $137,651

135,000.00 120,000.00 105,000.00 90,000.00 75.000 v0 80,000.00 45,000.00

30.000.00 15,000.00 00.000.00

TOTAL AS AT 17/6/70

NEWSLETTER

Page 2

DEATH OF SIR CHARLES BELCHER At its last meeting the College Council learnt, with regret, of the death of Sir Charles Frederic Belcher of Kokstad, South Africa, on 7th February, 1970. He was in his ninety-fourth year. Sir Charles was enrolled as a member of the College in 1894 and is believed to have been, prior to his death, its oldest surviving member.

Son of the late Hon. G. F. Belcher, Sir Charles was born at Geelong in 1876 and educated at the Geelong Grammar School. He took honours courses in English, History and Classics at the University of Melbourne and topped the final year of his course in Classics. Three years later he took out M.A. and LL.B. degrees. While at Trinity he held the Mary Armytage and Henry Berthon Scholarships. In his first year he shared a study with H. M. R. Rupp.

Sir Charles was an athlete and rower of distinction. He rowed with the winning Trinity crews of 1896 and 1898, the crew which dead-heated with Ormond in 1897 and with the Melbourne crew at the Australian Universities' Boat Race in the same year. In September of that year he had entered an A.A.C. handicap footrace one Saturday at Caulfield but decided to go to a ball in Geelong on the Friday evening instead. He rode his pushbike from Melbourne to Geelong on the Friday afternoon and danced for most of the night. Leaving Geelong at 6.30

THE NEW CHAPLAIN The Reverend James Alexander Grant, B.A., B.D., Th.L., was appointed Chaplain of the College from 1st March, 1970.

Mr. Grant was born at Redcliffs, Victoria, and went to school in Scotland and Geelong. In 1950 he was enrolled as a non-resident member of Trinity and three years later took an honours B.A. degree in History at the University of Melbourne.

He worked subsequently as a research assistant for Dr. Geoffrey Serle who was writing The Melbourne Scene In 1955-6 Mr. Grant was a temporary teacher with the Education Department.

In 1957 he returned to Trinity to study for the Licentiate of Theology. During his course he was awarded the Hey Sharp Prize and the Stewart Prize in Theology.

After a curacy at Murrumbeena he worked in West Heidelberg and Broadmeadows for three years as a member and then, for a further three years, as the leader of the Diocesan Task Force.

a.m. the following morning he cycled back to Trinity arriving at 10 a.m. After attending a lecture and eating lunch he decided to view the footrace at Caulfield.

In the last few minutes before the race he decided to run. Starting at the back of the field of about twenty-five he ran and won the race by about a foot!

After serving a legal apprenticeship in Geelong he was admitted in 1902 and subsequently worked in Melbourne and Kyabram. In 1907 he left for England and after reading with Sir Hugh Fraser obtained a first in his bar finals and was called to the bar at Grays Inn in 1909.

From 1909 until 1913 he practised in Geelong, becoming associated with the firm of Birdsey and Belcher.

From his childhood an enthusiastic field ornithologist he later gained a worldwide reputation for and travelled widely in pursuit of this interest. I-fe contributed to many magazines and published The Birds of the District of Geelong in 1914 and Nyasaland Birds in 1937.

A large part of his life was spent in the British Colonial Service—mostly in East Africa which he grew to love dearly—as Conveyancer in Uganda, in the Entebbe and Jinja Magistracies, as Puisne Judge in Zanzibar and as the Attorney-General (1920-23) and the Judge (1924-27) of Nyasaland. During these years he also served as a member of the Appeal Court of East Africa. He was appointed Chief Justice of Cyprus in 1927 and in this capacity he also presided over H.M.'s Appeal Court for Egypt.

In 1930 he was appointed Chief Justice of Trinidad and President of the Appeal Court of the West Indies. He was knighted in 1931.

A fine linguist, Sir Charles acquired proficiency in the languages native to the countries in which he served.

After his retirement in 1937 he lived in Kenya, served on various public committees during the war and in 1942 was appointed Chief Legal Adviser to the East Africa Command. After the war he retired again and in 1954 moved to South Africa.

He married in 1908 (Lady Belcher died in 1965) and is survived by a son, W. R. M. Belcher of Franklin, South Africa, and a daughter, Mrs. E. Cowling of Herstmonceux, Sussex, and by grand children and great-grandchildren.

June, 1970

ACADEMICA RAMPANT Of the University Scholarships, Exhibitions and Prizes awarded for 1969 results, Trinity gentlemen took thirty-five.

This represents a substantial increase on previous years' successes and certainly puts us ahead in the Distinctions Race.

Of course seven of these were taken by one man, Mr. M. R. Luxton, a final year Medical student: The John Adey Prize in Neo Natal Paediatrics, the Hubert Jacobs Prize in Clinical Gynaecology, the Robert Gartly Healy Scholarship in Medicine, the Keith Levi Memorial Scholarship in Medicine, the Beaney Scholarship (shared) and the Robert Gartly Healy Scholarship in Surgery (shared) .

Mr. M. D. Hamer took the palm in Applied Maths I, Chemistry IA and Pure Maths I. Mr. R. J. Stewart deserves distinction too for two exhibitions, the more meritorious since he is the College Senior Student. There were many other exhibitions and firsts which could be mentioned; members of the College took eighty-six first class honours and one hundred and forty-four second class honours.

But on the other side eight freshmen failed their year, in spite of the intensive care by Personal Tutors and subject tutors. Some seemed to have made a wrong choice of course, some had difficulty in applying intellectual self-discipline after the intensive fostering they had had at school, some seemed inadequately motivated to further intellectual pursuits —in fact one preferred to join the Regular Army half-way through the year!

The College gives a wide range of tutorials, ninety-nine each week, involving forty-six non-resident and resident tutors, two hundred and two resident student members and eighty-three non-resident student members of the College. In addition a number of Trinity men attend tutorials in other colleges and a larger number of students from other colleges come to Trinity for tutorials. Tutorial assistance is available for all Trinity men but the wide range of subjects taken by them in the later years of their courses means that for some courses formal College classes are limited to the earlier year subjects.

The Reverend J. A. Grant

Mr. Grant was appointed, in 1966, Personal and Examining Chaplain to the Archbishop of Melbourne, a position which he filled until February this year.

During his Chaplaincy he found, somehow, time to complete the course for a Bachelor of Divinity degree.

The President of the College Council welcomes His Excellency the Governor and Lady Delacombe on their arrival at the College for the reception marking the Centenary of the Laying of the Foundation Stone. Left to right: Lady Delacombe, the Governor, the President, the Warden, Mrs. Weickhardt and the Deputy-Chancellor (Mr. Weickhardt).

NEWSLETTER

June, 1970

Page3

SWYNNESONG On 29th April, 1970, Mr. Sydney Wynne was brought into a meeting of the College Council and there received the formal thanks of the President (the Most Reverend Frank Woods, Archbishop of Melbourne) for his fifty years of service to the College.* The Warden read the following citation:— The Minute Book of the College Counenquired of this commanding if casually cil informs us that on 3rd March, 1920 attired figure where he could find the "it was resolved that Mr. S. Wynne be Warden; "I'm the bloody Warden", said appointed a permanent employee of the Mr. Wynne, "what do you want?"

College at £ 5 per week to keep the The two Wynnes, father and son, built property of the Council in thorough the buildings we know as the Vatican order, and to be responsible for all repairs and the Summer-house, with stone (other than paper-hanging and sanitary acquired somehow or other from Newplumbing) that may be found necessary". man College and St. Paul's Cathedral.

In early March of 1970, after half a cenMr. Sydney Wynne himself later built the tury of unbroken service, Mr. S. Wynne men's domestic block, the Deanery, slipped quietly away, without any cerevarious extensions and other minor works, mony, into what we must, presumably, and gave close and invaluable attention describe as his retirement (although in to all other building undertaken during his case the idea of retirement seems his period of service. almost unimaginable) .

His connection with the College exceeds the fifty years of his employment, for his father was here before him, and as a small boy—a very small boy, let us hasten to say—Mr. Wynne knew the College in the halcyon days before the First World War. His experience, then, spans all phases of the College's history save for its very beginnings. All four Wardens have been personally known to him, and he has served under three of them.

He first worked for the College as an assistant to his father. His permanent employment, we have noted, began in 1920. Somewhat later he received the impressive title of Overseer, and as the years went by his authority in certain areas of College life grew to awesome proportions. Not for nothing was the story told of the innocent freshman who

In 1950, when the College found itself unable to recruit a new Matron, Mr. Wynne took on the whole responsibility for house and catering in addition to his other duties. This very remarkable appointment was a measure of the Council's confidence in him, and he demonstrated over the following years that it was not misplaced.

In his relations with both domestic staff and students, Mr. Wynne was paternal in the best old-fashioned sense of that word—firm, indeed tough, tough and rough when occasion called for it, but always unfailingly kind. Many and many a student, over the generations — yes, and Tutors and College officers as well— knew his helping hand, his plain speaking, his sensible advice; many a member of the domestic staff was patiently nursed

A MARSHALL RETROSPECTIVE The Reverend Doctor Barry Marshall, who was Chaplain of the College from mid-1961 until the end of 1969, sailed for England on 22nd May to take up the Principalship of Pusey House, Oxford. With him go the warmest good wishes of the members of the College and all his Australian friends for his happiness and future vocation.

Shortly before leaving Australia Dr. Marshall wrote the following review of his years at Trinity— Along with Sydney Arthur Wynne I can claim the distinction of having been "under", in one form or another, three successive Wardens of Trinity. (Of course, S.A.W. can claim all four. One can't beat that.) Along with John Riddoch Poynter, I can claim the unique distinction of being a Joint Acting Warden for three Terms, and that was quite enough to clarify, as I thought, certain misguided ambitions I might have fleetingly held. Fate, or someone, has in fact decreed otherwise, as they say.

My life with Jock was brief but memorable. The war was just over and the College was just coming to full life again—there were certainly less than ten valedictees in 1946—but things were never going to be quite the same. Jock had moved down to the Deanery and reigned from a study in the Vatican with the aid of a secretary. (Very important, that secretary. She married the Chaplain.)

To the freshers of 1946, more than half of whom were returned from active service, Jock was Olympian, remote and entirely nineteenth century. He wore spats, striped trousers, and morning coat to Mattins on Sundays and addressed the

College from time to time in that strained and slightly sinister monotone which served his phrases well. At the hanging of Gunn's portrait in the place of honour next to Leeper, Jock on that occasion drew attention to the fact that he was depicted holding a scroll; "they will say," he said, referring to posterity, "that the old man was a builder". Of course they don't, because buildings come a bit easier now than they did in the thirties and all the effort is largely forgotten. But the Behan Building, as it was originally intended—four students to a "flat" on the staircase principle—summed up exactly Jock's ideals for the College. Then one night late in first term 1946 there was another dinner and at it was a solid little twentieth century man, also fresh from the wars, who was to be the next Warden.

And in between the two mightly portraits of the old giants there was a minutely framed cutting of his picture from an evening paper, from which hung an enormous motto "Postea crescam laude". "I approve of that", remarked Jock on this occasion, and during that May vacation the College slipped quietly into the twentieth century.

Mr. S. A. Wynne

by him, both figuratively and literally, through physical or mental illness and other troubles.

In his last years with us, Mr. Wynne seemed to embody in his own person the whole tradition of the place. He knew more about the College than all the rest of us, and what he did not know he was always cheerfully prepared to make up. Overseer, oracle, father-figure, he filled every horizon and stole every scene.

It was almost impossible to believe that he could leave us, or that we could get on without him. Yet the day came, and the effort has had to be made.

And so, Mr. President, with pride, with affection, and in the knowledge that an era has been brought to an end, I present to you Sydney Arthur Wynne, to receive the formal thanks of this Council for his unique services to the College, and through the College to the University and the community.

'Note: With his usual modesty Mr. Wynne has been reluctant to attend a more public occasion when he might be thanked for his manifold services to the College and his friends.

All of my generation in College were associated with the growing pains which afflict every new Warden, and Warden Cowan, by the time I had left, had not become even remotely an institution. Outwardly the College life with its pre-war conventions and traditional occasions changed very little. The line between the pre- and post-war college life had been thin and frail but it had not broken. Despite the fact that even though more than half the College was ex-service, there was surprisingly little "protest" about even such things as compulsory chapel, the gate book (to be signed if you came in after 10 p.m.), and the total ban on radios (and grog!). The fact that these things were supposed to cramp your style and erode your personality never occurred to us, and I say this not in a Jack Homer sort of way but just in sheer wonder at the thought at what all these things would arouse nowadays. Contemporary "protest" always seems to be absolute. It is just possible that apparent complacency of this generation towards domestic pinpricks may have been partly due to the fact that it was on the whole much more political in the general sense. The College was full of potential world-changers of one sort or another, though many methodically pursued their meal tickets, as now. Between the end of 1949 and the beginning of 1961, I only visited Trinity once, on the way to Oxford. The Warden was much more settled and relaxed and the College getting younger as the war heroes drained away. After Oxford, I went Bush Brothering in Bourke, (Continued on page 4)

NEWSLETTER

Page 4

June, 1970

Cricket

SPORTING

Three very exciting matches concluded with the defeat of Trinity by Ormond in the final.

In the first match Trinity was all out for 136 runs and Ormond were in an apparently commanding position with 5 for 115 until Trinity bowler, Mr. S. P. Dodge took four wickets for no runs which led to a Trinity victory by„eight runs. Altogether Mr. Dodge took 6 wickets for 38 runs. Mr. A. L. Cunningham scored 44 for Trinity.

In the second match, against Newman, Newman scored 129 and Trinity were 5 for 95 when the next four wickets fell for the addition of only nine runs. Later, with only two overs to play the task of the remaining batsmen was to score 18 runs. Fourteen were scored off the first of these two overs and the remaining necessary runs were scored in the last over. Mr. E. S. Bellchambers, the Trinity captain, made 48 runs.

In the final against Ormond, Ormond scored 162 for six wickets off 34.2 overs before the time limit was reached. Trinity started disastrously by losing three wickets for only ten runs but a strong partnership of Mr. S. P. Moss (32) and Mr. S. J. McGregor (52) greatly restored the team's spirits. When the tenth batsman went in Trinity needed 40 runs off 4.2 overs. Mr. R. J. Ch. de Crespigny, well on top of the bowling, reduced the task to that of scoring 21 off three overs. The last batsman came in when 8 runs were needed off the last four balls

A Marshall Retrospective from page 3

N.S.W., and only thought about the College when the Fleur-de-lys turned up like a voice from the past . . . same games, different faces.

Sometime in 1960 I had a letter from Ron Cowan urging me to come back to Trinity and act as Chaplain for a year while the Chaplain was on leave.

It was such a dramatic suggestion that I reacted as I always do to such things, with some masterly inactivity. Then a telegram arrived. It simply said, "Come over to Macedonia and help us. Cowan".

It was irresistible, and with some help, made a decision that changed the course of my life, as it happened. The Chaplain did not return to that position and somewhere in the middle of 1961 I was appointed Chaplain of Trinity from 1962.

One was frequently asked whether the College had changed much since "my day". Well, it had. Size was the most noticeable thing, and the consequent fragmentation of the old community sense. In "my day", there was a great deal of sometimes not always very healthy insistence that everybody do everything together. This was breaking in favour of individual liberty, but the Warden was still serenaded on his birthday by the whole College, and after politely enquiring the reason for the demonstration outside the Deanery, he offered sherry all round. Numbers too was slowly eliminating some of the traditional occasions which had never been very substantial at

"All work and no play .. . of the match. One run was hit from the first ball, the second ball was played out and the third ball added another two runs. From the final ball Trinity needed a six to win. An excellent shot by Mr. de Crespigny was caught at head height ten feet inside the boundary.

Rowing Mr. B. C. Clarke rows with the Victorian Lightweight Fours and so was unable to row for the College. Mr. W. D. Harbison, a member of the South Australian King's Cup crew, rowed with the College's first eight.

Trinity Firsts defeated Newman in the heat and convincingly beat Ormond in the intercollegiate final. The crew lost in the extracollegiate competition but were victorious in the Scotch-Mercantile Regatta.

The second eight defeated Newman and went on to win against Ormond by a length and a half in the final.

Probably all eighteen rowers will be in residence again next year.

the best of times but had always offered yet another chance for a College gettogether. They depended upon total participation and when this waned as an ideal there was not much left. Elliott Fours were dying on their feet, the J.C.H.Trinity Hockey Match (a Swot Vac high point) was simply closed down, and more recent years have even seen Juttoddie's invincible identity challenged and, with it, the whole concept of Swot Vac itself.

Private lives and interests are very much to the fore nowadays, and when this is married to the whole competitive system around which academic life tends to rotate, time is at a premium and the organisation of leisure very much a personal affair. College-minded organisers are always being disappointed.

The tragic death of Warden Cowan at the height of his powers, the Joint-ActingWardenial interregnum (when apart from the erection of the joint-acting laundry, the College marked time) and the appointment of Warden Sharwood will, I believe, all subsequently appear to be very important in the College's evolution.

"My day" and nowadays are sharply separated by such events but the very discontinuity may well be a blessing. The powers of survival evinced by some of the world's senior universities have not been generated by an antiquarian conservatism but rather by a power to adapt and channel the energies of each age. The persistent survival of traditions and customs in, say, Oxford can obscure for some minds the essentially radical nature of the

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Tennis The first round and the semi-final saw easy wins for Trinity playing against Whitley and Ridley respectively but in the inter-collegiate final Trinity was defeated by the long-time rival at tennis, Queen's College. Each College won three of the singles matches and Queen's won two of the three doubles matches. The Trinity captain, Mr. S. C. Fowler, has lost only one match in four years of inter-collegiate tennis.

Squash Trinity defeated Ormond 3-2 in the final.

Swimming A good performance by Mr. M. James notwithstanding, Trinity came only third in the Colleges' swimming competition.

Until the very poor performan ce by Trinity in the inter-collegiate athletic events the College stood a good chance of retaining the R. W. T. Cowan Cup for inter-collegiate sport. At present the prospects of this are much less bright but two competitions remain to be played Hockey and Football—and for victory, in at least the latter, hopes are high.

place. Its strength lies not so much in having a good set of brakes but rather in having imagination and vision. Far from abjectly abandoning cherished positions until it has nothing more to give up except existence, it forms and leads, and creates new standards of excellence. The upheavals of today are small beer cornpared to the spiritual revolutions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and communities of scholars survived them all.

The emphasis and the generalisations however do apply, in my mind, only to communities of scholars. I have no insights into the future of student housing viewed as an institution. In as much as it becomes collective it will doubtless evolve its own ethos, though my experience of such places in other countries in the world is that their moving spirits tend to be perennial adolescents who soon tire of routine management, once the battle is won and the "paternalists" are all banished from the scene. Then you can have the worst of all worlds.

Trinity has evolved considerably during the years and in my view there were never really any "good old days". Every decade of its history, in every Wardenship, has had its crises and, as I said, growing pains; and all sensitive members of the place will feel them as a matter of course. Looking back, it has always seemed to me that it is a community of scholars who in the main lead balanced lives. And it is for this large evolving, and generally silent, majority that the College has always existed.

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