History Revisited - early UNE rebellions

Sometimes it can hard to sort fact from fiction, fiction from simple failures of an imperfect memory. Some of my first memories as a child are of the still very small University College. The Teachers’ College was just up the hill from home. Many of the people who feature in the early history of both are not just names. They were friends of my parents or grandparents. I often played with their children.

All these years later, I still have some degree of involvement with the University. In the intervening years I have been an undergraduate student, later a postgraduate student and have been involved with the place in a variety of activities. It can be difficult to disentangle it all, although stories stand out in my mind.

Orientation Week 1963 was very well organised indeed: “study hard,” the new students were told, “but also participate fully in university life.” This wasn’t hard, for apart from the Colleges and the Unions there were no less than fifty-eight clubs and societies on campus. There was little sign that February that the first great student revolt was about to break out.

Some University Council members had become concerned, or so the official line ran, with failure rates in the previous year; student social activities were detracting from study. Students took a different view, that the Council members and one in particular were concerned at perceived sexual immorality and the risk of pregnancy. Whatever the reason, Council decided to restrict room visiting between members of the opposite sex.

This decision was met with protest from colleges, some academic staff and from students. Should inter-collegiate visits be further restricted, Council was warned, “the student body will not feel constrained to obey such regulations.”

With Council to meet to further consider the matter, a major demonstration was organised on the day of the October meeting: 400 students blocked the Elm Avenue bridge, blocking access to Booloominbah until police cleared the road. The students then re-gathered on the lawns outside the Council room to continue their protest.

Council would not be moved. It considered itself in loco parentis at a time when most students lived in college, while many of the first years were seventeen, some sixteen It resolved that from January 1964, room-visiting would be banned. With term ending, the matter rested, but the ground was set for major confrontation in the new year.

Throughout 1964, student opposition continued, strengthening in 1965. Faced with an organised rule breaking campaign including mass room visits, a growing unwillingness of the Proctorial Board to impose fines and increasing opposition from college senior fellows, Council wilted. In September 1965, limited room visiting was reinstated. Agitation continued. Finally, in October 1967, Council handed the whole matter back to the Colleges.

While it was not clear at the time, the room visiting affair marked the start of a period of student rebellion that was to force change on all of Armidale’s schools and colleges. An era had ended.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 17 April 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013

History Revisited - taking stock of golden opportunity for bank

Have you heard of the Australian Joint Stock Bank? I must admit that I hadn’t until I found reference to it while browsing An Armidale Album, the source for several of my recent columns. .Why is it significant for Armidale? Well, it was our first bank.

Early in 1852, a group of prominent Sydney merchants and citizens met at the Royal Hotel in Sydney to consider the formation of a new bank. The meeting was successful, with the first branch of the Joint Stock bank opening for business in Sydney on 24 January 1853.

Way to the north beyond the old barriers to settlement, the citizens of Armidale were concerned about the lack of local banking facilities. The Armidale Express, worried then as now about the doings of the local citizenry, commented on the large sums of money being realised by the New England working class in general and especially by the diggers at Rocky River. “For the want of a safe place of personal deposit”, the paper observed, “a great portion of this money is being spent on drunkenness, instead of being devoted to purposes alike beneficial to the owners and the best interests of society.”

Whether it was the paper’s call or just the cash being generated on the gold fields, the Armidale branch of the Australian Joint Stock Bank opened on Monday 15 December 1853. The Express was quite pleased. “We regard the opening of the bank as one of the greatest benefits ever conferred on the district”, it declaimed.

Initially the Bank operated from rented premises, but then decided to build its own building on land it had purchased in Beardy Street. By January 1864, the new premises were ready for occupation.

There seem to have been some maintenance problems with the new building or perhaps it just wasn’t very well built. In any event, by late 1887 it was in such a state of disrepair that the Bank decided to tear it down and start again.

Armidale Album records that Sydney architects Blackmann and John Sulman were commissioned to design a new bank. That may not be quite right, unless Sulman was still using the old partnership name. You see, it appears that Blackmann fled Sydney with a barmaid in 1886, leaving Sulman to pay his debts!

In any event, John Sulman (another of the architects who has had such an impact on Armidale’s built landscape) set to work to design a new building. The new design was in the monumental style .so beloved by banks, a physical assertion of authority and respectability.

By April 1889, the new building was finished. Thereafter it remained a bank building for more than a hundred years, finishing its banking career as the State Bank. Have you guessed which building is it? You see it most times you go down town.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 3 April 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013

History Revisited - the night the city was given light

Public meetings have always been a feature of Armidale life. While not always well attended, little could be done without them. They helped organise public support and to raise money for civic activities.

In 1883, the Great Northern railway finally reached Armidale. At night, the town then lay largely in darkness. Those alighting from the railway found their way to Beardy Street along streets dimly lit by fifteen or sixteen kerosene street lights. Elsewhere, darkness held sway. Something had to be done!

In May 1883, a group of leading citizens petitioned the Mayor, John Moore, to convene a public meeting to consider the feasibility of forming an Armidale gas company.

The idea of gas lighting was hardly new. In 1837, the Australian Gas Light Company (AGL) had been given a Royal Charter charging it with responsibility for lighting Sydney’s streets. On 24 May 1841, the first lights were turned on to celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday. That year, AGL became the second company to list on the Australian Stock Exchange.

While the idea of gas lighting wasn’t new, the cost of bringing coal to Armidale by road mad gas lighting impractical. Now with the railway, coal could be brought easily from the Hunter Valley.

In Friday 26 May 1883, the requested public meeting convened at the Armidale Town Hall with Mayor Moore in the chair. There they heard a proposal for the construction of a gasworks estimated to cost £7,000 to £8,000. A gas committee was formed to consider proposals and to seek expert advice.

In July, the Mayor presented a proposal to another public meeting that an Armidale Gas Company be established and a share list drawn up. There appears to have been some initial hesitation, but finally the necessary capital was obtained and construction begun on a Beardy Street site, along with around five miles of supporting gas mains and associated building connections.

This was quite a large undertaking in a still small city. Finally, in October 1885, all was ready. The mains were filled with gas, and then a team of plumbers and gasfitters lead by gas manager Samuel Rutter walked the mains to check that all the connected buildings were ready to light-up at dusk.

As night fell on Saturday night, 24 October, the streets were thronged with people, many who had never seen gaslight before. As the City Band played outside the gasworks where red, green and blue lights burned, the stores, hotels and public buildings suddenly blazed with bright light. The darkness that had marked the city was no more.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 27 March 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013