The Pacific Belshaws 5 - Belshaw appointed to Armidale

Doc: Jim Belshaw, 1940, two years after arriving in Armidale

Sydney, July 1937. 

Now 29, Jim Belshaw returns to New Zealand from England having completed his PhD in economics at Manchester. At Sydney, Belshaw went ashore to inquire about job prospects at the University and the banks. At the Bank of New South Wales Economics Department he heard vague rumours about a proposed university college to be established in a remote part of the state. Those he talked to were not impressed.

In December 1937, the first five academic positions at the New England University College were advertised. Without much enthusiasm and with decided reservations, Belshaw decided to apply, beating thirty five other applicants for the position of foundation lecturer in history and economics.

Previously, we left Belshaw sitting in his fettler’s cottage turned school master’s residence at Tahekeroa north of Auckland. He had just failed to get a scholarship to study in the UK despite completing a masters with first class honours and .first in New Zealand. 

Now Belshaw sat down to do another masters, this one in history: “New Zealand in the Crisis: An Essay in Recent Economic History.” This time after again gaining first class honours and first in New Zealand, Belshaw was awarded the coveted scholarship to study in the UK.

The scholarship provided for a return first class steamer fare plus tuition and living costs at a university of your choice. This was a new world for the still young Belshaw with his provincial and working class background. Among other things, he had to buy his first dinner jacket to wear at dinner, a heavy wool affair that proved to be quite unsuitable on a ship sailing through the tropics!

I think that one of the things that would make Belshaw so effective as a teacher at New England is that he understood what it was like for often insecure students from families with no exposure to university education. It could also make him demanding because he knew what was possible and had strongly developed views on academic standards.

Relationships between older and younger brothers, or indeed between generations, can be complicated.

Jim Belshaw was following in the footsteps of his elder brother. By the time Belshaw was completing his second MA, Horace had become a major New Zealand public figure, setting a considerable challenge for the younger man.

Jim Belshaw rejected Cambridge for his PhD because Horace had gone there, choosing instead to go to Manchester near original Belshaw home country. However, the two brothers shared interests and values. 

My next column will carry the story through to the early days of the New England University College as Jim Belshaw established his own place. This was also the period in which the now New Zealand Belshaws became the Pacific Belshaws. 

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 7 February 2018. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters 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, here  2017, here 2018