History Revisited - a collection of wisdom

SHARING THE KNOWLEDGE: the Collective Wisdom project was held in the Armidale Town Hall in 1966 to demonstrate the way computers and communications technology could be used to boost teaching in the city's many schools

In 1996, Armidale saw a major exhibition in the Town Hall under the banner of the Collective Wisdom Project.

Combining Armidale schools, private and public, primary and secondary, the exhibition showcased the way new computing and communications could aid education. .A key objective was to gain support and funding for a modern communications network linking all Armidale educational institutions that would encourage and showcase collaborative working and in so doing sell Armidale as an education centre.

The exhibition was ambitious in size and scope. School groups gathered in the Town Hall to create web pages. Back at school, others prepared content to be sent to the Town Hall over the phone lines. There was a video link up between the Town Hall and the UNE campus in Sydney.

With support from Martin Levins and The Armidale School, the Town Hall display worked perfectly. However, despite support from a Telstra team who set up the Town Hall links, major communications problems emerged. In the end, disks had to be driven to the Town Hall instead of being sent down the wires.

FROM SLATES TO KEYBOARDS: Students were able to compare the learning styles throughout history

The Collective Wisdom exhibition combined Armidale’s past, present and future.

It was mounted in the dying embers of a local entrepreneurial high technology and professional services boom that had begun in the 1980s. This grew rapidly providing significant employment, and then declined just as sharply under the combined impact of the Keating recession and growing turmoil within the University of New England.

The issues highlighted by Collective Wisdom remain relevant today in the continuing discussion about the NBN and communications, about the role that technology should play in the future of education in Armidale and indeed Armidale’s future as a high technology centre.

Finally, the exhibition used exhibits from the Armidale Museum of Education to highlight the difference between past, present and prospective future.

In my last column, I mentioned that Eric Dunlop first raised the question of what he called his '"Old Time One-Teacher School" museum project' just eight months after returning to the Armidale Teachers’ College in 1949.

With support from College principal G W (Bill Bassett) and the Department, attempts began to identify items that might be included in the proposed museum. One item identified at Inverell was the beehive building of the old Pallamallawalla school.

While the Education Museum slowly evolved, Dunlop turned his mind to a second project. Late in 1953, he went on a nine moth trip to Europe to study, among other things, folk, house and open-air museums across Britain and Scandinavia.

This trip created the idea of a folk museum for Armidale. The net result was that Armidale gained two museums, the Education Museum opened in 1956 centred on the Pallamallawalla school and then, in 1958, the Folk Museum.

Eric Dunlop left Armidale in 1962, leaving a considerable legacy behind.

I will leave the museum story here. Later, I will tell you the stories of other museums established across New England as a consequence of the museum movement. 

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 6 April 2016. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they 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, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016.

History Revisited - Eric Dunlop never wearied of teaching

INSPIRING GENERATIONS: Eric Dunlop was a a lecturer in history st the Armidale Teachers' College and a pioneer of the museum movement. He was originally a student at Fort Street Boys High School where he was inspired by C B Newling, first head of the Teachers' College, after whom the campus is named.

Today’s column explores the life of one man, Eric Dunlop, who played such a major role in the development of Armidale’s museums.

In writing about local and regional history, I am often frustrated because of the lack of biographical data. Fortunately, in Eric’s case we have the work of Nicole McLennan to draw from.

Eric Dunlop was born on 17 May 1910, the son of Alexander, a journalist, and his wife Jane. Dunlop did his secondary education at Fort Street Boys High School where he was taught history by C B Newling, later first principal of the Armidale Teachers' College. McLennan records that Newling reputedly fired Dunlop's interest in museums by setting he and another student a project to examine and report on the Australian Museum's Captain Cook artefacts.

In 1933, Dunlop graduated from Sydney University with a Master of Arts with first class honours in history and began teaching. .The following year at the young age of 24, Newling recruited him as lecturer in history at Armidale Teachers' College.

After two years at the College, Dunlop decided to return to teaching, taking advice that this would broaden his experience and accelerate promotion. He became frustrated at the limitations in the school system, realised that he had found his true vocation at the College and sought to return. Twelve years and one war later, he returned to Armidale in February 1949.

Three things should be remembered in considering the events that followed.

Dunlop was influenced by the ideas of what was called the 'New Education', with its emphasis on putting 'the school into contact with "real life", the need to develop all the powers of the child, the value of "learning by doing" and "activity", and "self-expression"'.

This ‘New Education’ focus fitted with another thread, Dunlop’s interest in the country and in the local and regional experience, a thread that meshed perfectly with local concerns. Local state member and former Education Minister David Drummond, for example, was both an exponent of the ‘New Education’ and of the Northern and Country causes of which Armidale was part and also major beneficiary.

Finally, Dunlop had both energy and perseverance, necessary conditions if you are to drive things through.

In 1949, just eight months after his return to Armidale, Dunlop formally proposed his '"Old Time One-Teacher School" project' to Dr G W Bassett, then principal of the College. This involved the reconstruction of a bush school on the college fields, authentically furnished and equipped, paying 'attention to minute details'.

The building was to be set up as a museum, catering to school groups and tourists. It would also be a research centre, housing a collection of materials on educational practice and facilities for the use of students at the College. Through the project, Dunlop hoped to 'awaken a deeper consciousness of the intrinsic interest of our early history' via the preservation and display of historic objects.

In my next column, I will tell you a little more of the story of Eric Dunlop and the history of Armidale’s museum movements.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 30 March 2016. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they 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, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016.

History Revisited - darkening clouds over Armidale's Museum

PAINTINGS WITHDRAWN: In 1939 the National Gallery of NSW withdraws paintings from the Armidale Museum due to Gallery budget cuts

When David Drummond officially opened the new Armidale Museum on Saturday 16 December 1933 as the first municipally operated museum in NSW, the future seemed secure after all those years of effort, the future seemed secure. It wasn’t to be as easy as that.

In July the following year, a meeting convened by Mayor O’Connor established a number of sub committees to undertake the organisation of various sections of the museum. Honorary Curator A H Perrott mentioned the need for more space to house the growing collection. Drummond warned that if the museum was to develop in the right direction it “must not be allowed to become a mausoleum or dumping ground for curios.”

The collection continued to grow. The trustees of the Booloominbah estate presented the trustees with the very fine collection of Island trophies formerly housed in Booloominbah. Geoffrey Forster donated the saddle said have been used by Thunderbolt.

William Dixson after whom the University Library is named donated the original petition to the Governor praying that Armidale should be proclaimed a municipality. The Reverend J A R Perkins donated a more than 300 year old bible.

Yet in the middle of all this, there seems to have been a decline in enthusiasm. There were also setbacks. In April 1939, the director of the National Art Gallery of NSW advised Council that the paintings on loan to the art gallery side of the museum. were to be withdrawn as a consequence of budget cutbacks.

In January 1942 the museum was closed for the duration of the war, becoming the office of the Chief Warden. “Stoutly timbered and sandbagged reinforcements”, stretchers, medical supplies and telephoned jostled with the museum collection. At end July 1944 when workmen began clearing war paraphernalia, the collection was covered by thick dust.

I shuddered a little when I read this story. It wasn’t just the defeat of the previous efforts to create an Armidale museum, but the apparent mistreatment of a collection that had become quite valuable in both historical and monetary terms.

In 1945 and 1946, the premises were temporarily reopened to house two visiting exhibitions. Then in 1948, part of the museum space became the office for the New England County Council county clerk. The following year Council allocated space to the Postmaster General’s Department for a temporary office for a district radio inspector.

The allocation of museum space to offices was a bridge too far. In July 1950, the Sydney Sun published an article on neglected country museums, condemning Council for building offices in the museum.

A bit over two years later in September 1952, Harry Court who had played such an active role in the previous museum movement, protested about the mistreatment of the donated collections.

Council decided to re-open the museum. However, there was now a new museum movement in town that would lead to a change in direction.

I will complete the story of the Armidale museum in my next column. 

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 9 March 2016. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they 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, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016.

History Revisited - Armidale museum fight finally won, if for the moment

DECEMBER 1933: Local member and Education Minister David Drummond opens the Armidale museum, the first municipally operated museum in NSW

Starting in December 1890, three previous attempts to establish an Armidale museum had all failed. Now in November 1929, the Armidale Express reported that Alderman D W Oliver had instigated new moves “to establish a museum in Armidale”.

The trigger appears to have been the offer of the gem and minerals collection belong to Albert Pike. Now an elderly man living in Mittagong, Mr Pike was a well known local prospector and one of the pioneers of the Copeton diamond field.

This was a considerable collection, one that would be later valued at £5,000. Following a detailed evaluation by W E Clark, science master at Armidale High School, the Armidale Council announced in June 1931 that it had decided to accept Mr Pike’s offer of the collection in return for “suitable living quarters and a small retainer.”

David Drummond as local MP and also Minister for Public Instruction offered one guinea as a donation and suggested that the collection could be housed in the Teachers’ College until accommodation could be provided. Drummond had already been looking for specimens that might be included in a museum at the Teachers’ College that would be reflective of the North.

The Armidale Express considered that the museum would be better in a more central position and also not confined to geological specimens. The paper launched an appeal for £50 to help house the exhibits, to provide a living room and furniture for Mr Pike and to pay him 10s a week in wages as curator and attendant.

On 5 September 1931, Alfred Pike arrived in Armidale by train. On Saturday 26 September, the museum opened in temporary premises to display both the Pike Collection and other exhibits lent by local businessman Harry Court.

The new museum had considerable support, but faced problems of premises, content and governance.

Its location in temporary premises proved difficult. Initially Council had hoped to fund a building for the museum and also art gallery using Unemployment Relief Council funds. When this failed, Council looked at other options.

Finally, in March 1933 Council received advice of a Government loan of £600 for construction of a museum and gallery on Council land to the Government Architect’s plans and specifications. Construction began immediately on a reasonably substantial brick building next to the Fire Station in Rusden Street.

Meanwhile, the museum’s protagonists worked to increase the collection. Now back in office as Minister for Education, Drummond persuaded Sydney jeweller Percy Marks to donate another collection of gemstones, while fifty samples of Australian commercial timbers were obtained from the Technological Museum in Sydney.

In the midst of work, Albert Pike died in May 1933, not living to see the final result.

On Saturday 16 December 1933, Drummond was able to officially open the Armidale museum. Armidale now had a functioning museum and art gallery, the first municipally operated museum in NSW, but there were difficulties ahead.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 2 March 2016. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they 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, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016.

History Revisited - Armidale's museum fight

Attempts to create an Armidale Museum have a long and sometimes chequered history.

The first move dates to 1890.

In December of that year, Armidale City Council requested the Minister of Public Instruction to establish technological classes and a museum in Armidale. In January 1891, the Mayor called a public meeting to discuss technical classes.

In November, the Under Secretary of the NSW Mines Department contacted Council in connection with the establishment of a School of Mines, asking if Council would provide a room should a collection of minerals be provided for exhibition. Council agreed and the collection was duly sent to Armidale.

These initial moves took place at a time of continuing fascination with science and technology, with technical education seen as a weapon of economic development. While Armidale clearly shared this interest, no further action appears to have been taken.

Towards the end of 1909 public interest resurfaced, with a sub-committee formed to receive specimens for a Technological Museum covering natural history, geology, mining and agriculture. On 16 February 1910, a representative public meeting was convened to further consider the museum question.

Money was again a key issue. With the School of Arts unable to fund a permanent building, the meeting concluded that the proper place for a museum would be in a technical school building. The meeting therefore resolved to ask the Mayor to inaugurate a deputation, through the State member, to wait upon the Premier seeking a special grant for the erection of a building for technical classes and a museum. Again, the museum proposal seems then to have lapsed.

There is now another long gap in our story. It is 1923 before the museum question resurfaces, and then it takes a different form. Whereas the previous discussions had focused on a technological museum, now the trigger was the possible purchase of a South Sea Island curio collection owned by P T W Black. This, A H Perrott of Chevy Chase hoped in September 1923, “would be for the foundation of a museum for New England.”

The use of the word New England suggests that the museum is now being seen in a broader context. At the same time, the shift from a technological museum to one centred on a South Sea Island’s collection raised the issue of purpose, a key question so far as museums are concerned. This issue would ultimately take the museum in new directions.

For the present, a committee was formed including Mayor Morgan Stephens to consider the proposal. The Mayor was forced to advise the committee that it was not possible to purchase the collection.

The museum proposal again lapsed, surfacing next in 1929. This time the result was the creation of NSW’s first municipally operated museum. I will continue the story in my next column.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 24 February 2016. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they 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, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016.

History revisited - building the institutions that would preserve and promote New England's history

BUILDING HISTORY: Eric Dunlop's recreation of a bush school room in the Museum of Education around 1958

In 1920 the first New State manifesto, Australia Subdivided, put a key problem facing the North in this way: In Northern New South Wales, a few high schools, no technical schools, no universities exist to retain the intelligence and culture of the area.

To try to address this problem, the Northern leadership set about institution building.

The establishment of the Armidale Teachers’ College in 1928 was the first major building block. It was to include a museum that Education Minister David Drummond hoped would represent the North to students from the North. To this end, he peppered his Department with minutes demanding that they find the best possible exhibits.

Down in the Clarence, in 1931 Sir Earle Page suggested the establishment of a historical records museum, which was named the Clarence River Historical Society, with R. C. Law as Secretary. In 1935 the society affiliated with the Royal Australian Historical Society, the first country historical society to do so

In 1933, Drummond opened the Armidale Municipal Museum, proclaimed as 'the first municipally controlled museum' in the state. The museum, Drummond suggested, should be more than just a repository of specimens. To his mind, a country museum should firstly be a place for objects that are 'intimately bound up with the history of the district'; and secondly a place for things 'closely associated with the industries of the district'. He warned that, above all, the museum 'must not be allowed to become a mausoleum or dumping ground for curios'.

In 1936, the Richmond River Historical Society was founded. By 1938, it was publishing its own journal.

New institutions attract new people. Eric Dunlop was one of the people drawn to Armidale by the new Teachers’ College.

Born on 17 May 1910, Dunlop went to Fort Street Boys High School where he was taught history by CB Newling, later first principal of the Armidale Teachers' College. Newling reputedly fired Dunlop's interest in museums by setting a project for him and another student to examine and report on the Australian Museum's Captain Cook artefacts.

In 1933, Dunlop graduated from Sydney University as Master of Arts with first class honours in history in 1933. The following year with Newling’s encouragement, he took up an appointment as lecturer in history at the Armidale Teachers' College.

Dunlop stayed just two years at the College before returning to teaching. He decided that this was an error wanted to come back, but it would be 1949 before he could return. He would then take up the up the museums cause with great enthusiasm, leaving his imprint on Armidale and on the study of history.

Another of the new people drawn to Armidale by the new institutions was Jim Belshaw. New Zealand born, Belshaw arrived in Armidale early in 1938 as foundation lecturer in history and economics at the newly established University College.

The base was now set for an explosion in New England historical writing. Two very different institutions, a university and teachers’ college, would combine with local historical societies and community bodies to create a golden age in New England historiography.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 4 March 2015. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they 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, here for 2014, here for 2015.

History revisited – two decades of change at UNE

Concluding my story of UNE’s Vice-Chancellors, in February Professor Bruce Thom (1994-1996) arrived to become VC of the newly reconstituted University of New England.

This “institution has been cruelly treated by State and Federal Governments”, he said. “The last four years were like a bad dream”. He promised a more democratic decision making process. The University must live within its means, diversify funding and increase research output.

The new VC was quickly swamped by legacy problems, including difficulties with the School of Law and the ill-fated Turkish venture. The University’s financial reserves had been largely exhausted by the previous troubles, By July 1996, it was in financial crisis. In November, staff carried a motion of no-confidence in the VC, followed by the Council. Professor Thom had no choice but to resign.

His place was taken by Mal (Malcolm) Nairn as interim VC. Building in part on decisions already made under Professor Thom, Nairn was able to stabilise the situation. His replacement Ingrid Moses (1997-2006) arrived in July 1997. She adopted Nairn’s strategic plan and was able to build from his work. By July 2001, the financial position had been largely restored.

In many ways, Malcolm Nairn, Ingrid Moses, Alan Pettigrew (2006-2010) and James Barber (2010-2014) faced common strategic problems: variable and often prescriptive government polices and funding; limited access to alternative funding sources; difficulties in attracting internal students, along with increased competition in the external marketplace.

The University’s strategic position was poor. From the early 1980s, increased competition especially from the metropolitan universities meant that fewer students were opting for UNE. The times of trouble not only damaged the University’s reputation, but also created greater competition in regional areas. The University of the North had become the University of the North West.

Faced with these problems, all Vice-Chancellors sort to build student numbers, to preserve the University’s research activities, to develop new courses and to find new ways of doing business. There were successes, but there were also recurring problems.

At his first Sydney alumni dinner after becoming Chancellor in 2004, John Cassidy told alumni “this university is a business and must be run as one. That is my job”

In 2008, this view of Chancellor as Executive Chancellor exploded in a brawl over the respective roles of Chancellor and VC that put the University back on the national front pages for all the wrong reasons, leading to Mr Cassidy’s departure. Five years later, the University was back there over another Chancellor. 

In August 2012, Vice Chancellor Barber presented his plans for UNE to a Sydney alumni dinner. Within minutes, the carefully constructed question and answer session dissolved as anxious and indeed angry alumni sought reassurance that the new focus on on-line mass delivery would not further damage their university as a university (photo).

Professor Barber outlined his plans for the main campus and explained that a strong on-line side would support a deeper on-campus experience. That may well be true, but it is also true that patience with the University among the broader university community is running thin.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 5 March 2014. 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, here for2014.

History revisited - College culture shapes shapes university

Continuing my story of UNE’s Vice Chancellors, in my last column I spoke of the very different cultures of the University and the Armidale and Northern Rivers Colleges of Advanced Education. Those differing cultures would be central to the perfect storm that now engulfed the University.

In December 1987, Professor Laurie Nichol (1985-1988) resigned as Vice Chancellor to take up the same position at the Australian National University. His place would be taken by Professor Don McNicol (1988-1990). That December, too, Commonwealth Education Minister John Dawkins released the Green Paper that would form the core of what became known as the Dawkins Revolution in Higher Education. 

The concept of education for national efficiency, for economic development, was central to the Dawkin’s reforms. To achieve this, universities, must become more business like, adopt new corporate models, find new sources of funding.

There were too many higher education institutions, too many small institutions. To be efficient,. they must merge. A stick and carrot approach was adopted. If you didn’t participate, Commonwealth funding would be contracted. If you did participate, then more funding would be provided.

Don McNicol, UNE’s new VC, was a former Chairman of the University Advisory Council of the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission, the body that had long pressed for a merger between UNE and the Armidale CAE. He fully supported the Dawkins reforms, arguing that they provided exciting opportunities.

Armidale and Northern Rivers CAEs were too small to attract funding as independent institutions, while the University was too small to join the top level of universities as defined. A sometimes frantic round of discussions began.

The end result was the creation of a new networked university incorporating not just UNE and the two colleges, but also, at its request, the Orange Agricultural College. The new university was the third biggest in NSW.

Amalgamation complete, McNicol departed to become VC at his old University, Sydney. He had been at UNE just two years.

The new Vice Chancellor, Professor Robert Smith (1990-1994), was Walcha born and a UNE graduate. He was also, like McNicol, deeply committed too and involved in the Dawkin’s reforms as a former head of the National Board of Employment, Education and Training. Now, under his leadership, the new networked university imploded.

Professor Smith was in a difficult position. Professor McNicol may have achieved amalgamation, but he had left differences in culture and strategy that had just been papered over. Northern Rivers in particular had a very clear objective, seeing the networked university as a path to ultimate full autonomy, while the old university was left without direction and increasingly resentful.

In trying to balance the various conflicts, the networked UNE developed complicated administrative structures that were the very antithesis of the original idea of a united consolidated university. Divorce became inevitable.

Importantly, during the final break-up the Armidale leadership under Principal Cliff Hawkins alienated both Orange and the Coffs Harbour University movement. Both opted for other arrangements. When, on 1 December 1994, the Armidale campus was reconstituted as an independent entity with all executive positions vacated, it was a much diminished institution.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 26 February 2014. 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, here for 2014.

History revisited - approach of UNE's perfect storm

In 1972, NSW Department of Decentralisation and Development population projections showed Armidale’s population growing from 18,156 in 1971 to 47,301 in 2001, larger than Tamworth. Two years later, University of New England Geography Department suggested a slower rate of growth, with Armidale’s population projected to reach 33,394 in 2000.

On the campus, the focus at the time was coping with growth. In the city, many were concerned that such rapid growth would destroy Armidale’s life style advantages. There was considerable resistance to any business development plans that might encourage or support growth. Neither town nor gown was really aware of just what was coming.

Between 1938 and 1985, the University College/University had six wardens or VCs. Now came four in eleven years: Lawrence Nicol (1985-1988), Don McNicol (1988-1990), Robert Smith (1990-1994) and Bruce Thom (1994-1996).

Over those eleven years, the University experienced the equivalent of a perfect storm that it was ill-equipped to deal with and which threatened to sink it entirely. In the city, growth stalled and then went into reverse. The population within the old city boundaries peaked at 21,605 in 1991 and then started falling.

The events of those turbulent years are vividly and indeed bitterly etched in the minds of many Armidale people and in the broader university community beyond. For that reason, I don’t want to talk about events in detail. Rather, I want to sketch some of the elements that made it such a perfect storm.

To the north of Armidale lay a university that combined research and teaching. Its tradition structure had two elements: a largely self-governing and collegiate if sometimes fractious academic arm; and an administrative wing that supported university activities. The VC sat over both.

To the south, lay the Armidale College of Advanced Education. Focused especially on teaching as opposed to research, the College had adjusted to the decline in the number of teacher trainees by introducing new courses, by reaching out. Its structures were more centralised, its approach more entrepreneurial than that holding at the University.

Down on the coast, you had another College of Advanced Education, Northern Rivers. Like the Armidale CAE, it had responded to the decline in the number of teacher trainees by introducing new courses. Of the three, it was the most entrepreneurial. It was also, and this was backed by the Lismore community, the local press and politicians, determined to become a university in its own right. In a way, Northern Rivers was a bit like UNE had been just forty years before.

There had been quite close links between the Lismore Teachers College, later Northern Rivers, and UNE. To a degree those links had atrophied as UNE withdrew from its broader Northern outreach role to focus on what it saw as its primary mission as a university.

Three institutions, three cultures, about to be jammed together by events happening far to the south in Canberra.

I will continue the story in my next column.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 19 February 2014. 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, here for 2014.

History revisited - Ursulines forged a future from Armidale

Count Otto von Bismark was an iron willed, bigoted man.

The German Empire he helped create with its pride, military power and weak democratic structures would have a dramatic impact on Armidale through the First World War, the war of the European dynasties. However, Bismark had another and far more positive impact, one that affects Armidale to this today.

In 1870, Bismark’s intrigues sucked Emperor Napoleon the Third of France into declaring war on Prussia. Swept by patriotic fervor, the other German states came to Prussia’s aid. French Imperial pride was crushed, a defeat that changed the political landscape of Europe.

The French Empire was destroyed. A second, the German, was born. On 18 January 1871 in a symbolic gesture that would haunt European politics for seventy years, King William of Prussia was proclaimed German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.

Bismark had achieved his political objectives, but he had still to create a unified German state. As part of this, in 1871 he launched an anti-Catholic Kulturkampf ("culture struggle") in Prussia. Partly motivated by fear that Pius IX and future popes would use papal infallibility as a weapon for promoting a potential "papal desire for international political hegemony", it was also intended to help create a unified state.

Kulturkampf led to confiscation of church property and the exile of many clergy. Finally, the waves reached the ancient Hanoverian town of Duderstadt, forcing a small order of nuns, the Ursulines, into hurried exile in London.

On the other side of the world, Armidale’s newly created Roman Catholic Bishop Elzear Torreggiani had a problem. In 1879, Archbishop Vaughan of Sydney and his three suffragan Bishops issued a joint pastoral letter that condemned State schools, among other things, as “seedplots of future immorality, infidelity and lawlessness”.

The letter raised a storm of controversy, for it played into the local sectarian and anti Roman Catholic feelings that had been inflamed by the decisions of the first Vatican Council. One result was the passage in NSW of the Public Instruction Act of 1880, withdrawing all state support for church schools.

The Roman Catholic response was immediate. “I will solve the school question in a way that will astonish them,” Vaughan declared. The solution lay in the creation of a new school system. This was a tad of a problem for Bishop Torreggiani in Armidale, for he had no money, no buildings and no teachers!

Torreggiani set about raising money and acquiring buildings. To attract teachers, he wrote to the exiled Ursulines in London inviting them to come to Armidale. They accepted the call, arriving in Armidale in September 1882. Their impact was profound.

Today we see this in buildings, but it was far more than that. The Ursulines were highly educated middle class women with a far broader view of women’s education than was common at the time.

They and their girls contributed to every aspect of Armidale and New England life. At a time when the Church’s view of the role of women was very limited, the Ursuline girls were entering university. I think that’s rather wonderful.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 23 October 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 - colleges provide character for Uni

The story of the establishment of the University College is fairly well known. I have written on different aspects of it in this column. Given that, I thought that I would take you in a different direction in completing my series on the early days of Armidale’s two colleges

There was no great public demand for an establishment of a university college in Armidale. The Depression was still very much in people’s minds. Politicians, officials and voters were very conscious of limited government funds, while demands on government for immediate services were great.

There was also a measure of distrust at the very concept of a university in the North. Universities were elite institutions. Very few people had had any contact with a university. Many were actually distrustful of the impact on their children, or saw a university of any type as irrelevant to their family needs.

Distrust is difficult to measure, but there is little doubt that it existed. On top of that, the proponents still had to manage deeply held local parochialisms that might translate into opposition at Armidale receiving a benefit at the perceived cost of others.

Limited funds, a slowly receding depression, limited support for the very idea of a university and the risk of arousing local parochialism; all would seem to make the task impossible. And yet, somehow, it happened and in quite quick time.

Two things were absolutely critical here.

The first was the successful establishment of the Teacher’s College. By the time the University movement was really growing, the Teacher’s College halls again echoed with students. The idea of co-locating a University there to take advantage of under-utilised facilities was no longer feasible. However, the College had demonstrated that a country college would work and had also consolidated Armidale’s place as the pre-eminent education centre, the Oxford, of the North.

The second was the Northern leadership linked together by battles for Northern development over more than twenty years.

David Drummond may have been Minister for Education, he may have helped drive the concept, but he did not get the University College for that reason. He helped bring it about because he was an integral part of a Northern leadership that he was able to convince and that was committed to a new vision.

That powerful base provided credibility that helped draw in others and could be used by those who already had or could be drawn to the vision of both the North and the desire for a very specific Northern university. They knew how to cooperate, to work the levers of power and to manage local objections.

This history had a profound influence on the character of the new institution. The academics that came and many of the Northern leadership had an Oxbridge vision of the role of a university. However, the leadership also saw it, as they had in 1920 with Australia Subdivided, as a place that educate Northern kids, that would help preserve the history and culture of the North and would contribute to its development.

They would not be disappointed, although it would take decades for some elements of their vision for the new institution to be realised.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 7 August 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 - if you want something, build it fast

At the end of my last column I suggested that Drummond, Smith, Hicks and Newling proved an irresistible combination when it came to the establishment of the Armidale Teacher’s College.

The pace of events was truly remarkable. Drummond was sworn in as Minister in October 1927. The College opened for business in February 1928 using temporary buildings. Each man played a different role over those few frantic months. .

Smith marshaled the Department’s resources to support his Minister’s dream. Hicks provided critical on-ground logistics and other support. As new Principal, Newling dealt with the myriad practical details required to create a new institution from scratch.

Drummond was determined that his new baby would be healthy with every chance in life. He also wanted the College to be seen as a college of the North, not just Armidale. An activist minister, his ministerial letter books are full of instructions, suggestions and requests as he looked for resources for the new College.

He also worked behind the scenes to marshal broader Northern support. This College, he told Armidale Mayor Morgan Stephens, must be seen as the College of the North, not just Armidale.

The new state campaigns of the early 1920s had been led by key Northern pressmen. Drummond knew the editors and proprietors; he was now a newspaper man himself, so gaining friendly newspaper coverage was not hard.

With the College open, Drummond turned his attention to ensuring that it was properly housed in a building befitting its Northern status. He paid attention to every detail. Later he would be criticised for this, for extravagance, but his approach proved to be wise.

None of the players in those hectic days in 1928 and early 1929 realised that a cataclysm, the Great Depression, was about to break. As it hit, state revenues declined and cuts had to be made, including the number of student teachers. Student intakes dropped and dropped again.

The halls of the new College echoed to the sound of fewer and fewer footsteps. The College became known as Drummond’s White Elephant, There were demands to close it.

Drummond was unrepentant, although he had a sneaking sympathy for William Davies, his successor as Minister in the Lang Labor Government. Davies came to visit and the College was saved. The project was really too far advanced to cancel.

I will finish the early story of Armidale’s two colleges in my next column.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 31 July 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.