Zelman Cowen, UNEs second VC, 1968.This is the first in a three part series on the life of Sir Zelman.
October marked one
hundred years since the birth of the University of New England’s second
Vice-Chancellor, Sir Zelman Cowen.
Zelman Cowen was born
in Melbourne on 7 October 1919, the son of Bernard and Sarah Cohen. His father
changed the family name to Cowen a few years after his birth.
After studying
locally, the boy won a scholarship to Melbourne’s Scotch College where he was
Dux in 1935. He then studied law at Melbourne University, winning the Supreme
Court Prize as top student, followed by a Rhodes scholarship.
With the onset of war,
Cowen deferred the scholarship, enlisting in the Royal Australian Navy. He was
in Darwin at the time of the Japanese bombing in 1942 and then served on
General McArthur’s staff in Brisbane.
In 1945, Cowen married
Anna Wittner. The couple became, in the words of Michael Kirby, “a partnership
of intellect, culture and wit” with Anna “sometimes softening the ego that was
a feature, probably inevitable, of such a brilliant man.”
One senior New England
academic who, while liking and respecting Cowen, described the pair somewhat
acerbically as Anna and the King of I Am.
Following his marriage,
Cowen took up the delayed Rhodes scholarship at New College, Oxford. There he
again demonstrated that energy, drive and intellect that had already marked his
life.
He won the Vinerian
Scholarship as the top graduate in civil law and became a lecturer at Oriel.
There he won his doctorate with a biography of Sir Isaac Isaacs.
Isaacs, a hero of
Cowen’s, had become Australia’s first Jewish Governor-General after serving on
the High Court of Australia, including a period as Chief Justice.
In 1950, Cowen
returned to Melbourne University as the chair of public law. He also became
Dean of Law.
While at Melbourne,
Cowen began broadcasting radio commentaries, mainly on legal topics including
the attempts by the Menzies Government to dissolve the Australian Communist
Party.
Cowen was becoming a
prominent public intellectual, a not always easy role in Australia. He was also
interested in questions of civil rights and privacy, concerned about the
potential erosion of individual liberties.
In 1966, Sir Robert
Madgwick resigned as the University of New England’s Vice-Chancellor to become
Chair of the Australian Broadcasting Commission.
As Warden of the New
England University College and then as first VC of the newly autonomous
University, Madgwick had steered the institution through the difficult early
foundation stages into growth.
Cowen accepted an
invitation to become the second VC, arriving in Armidale in 1967. In my next column, I will look at his role as
VC and beyond.
Postscript
In the newspaper edition of this column, I had Sir Zelman attending Oriel College at Oxford while a Rhodes scholar. A correspondent corrected me. Cowen went to New College.
2 comments:
My father knew Zelman at uni and both couples married in 1945. But in the decades that followed, I only knew Anna through my mother and their shared community organisations. Great woman, was Anna.
Hi Hels. She was indeed.
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