Remembering the early days at the New England University College - Ian Johnstone reviews Jenny Browning's Four Wives

Retired Armidale lawyer and local historian Ian Johnstone with his latest book.  

From time to time here and elsewhere I have written of life in the early days of the New England England University College. Part of that writing dealt with the families and especially the story of the siblings, the children of the early academic staff.

In 2008, Jenny Browning nee Howie published a book called Four Wives, the story of four women who came to Armidale with their husbands in 1938 and 1939. I discussed briefly it in a column I wrote in October 2018, Armidale's university family grows. My experiences were a little different because my father was unmarried when he arrived in 1938 and later (1944) married a local girl.

The number of people who remember the days of the New England University College are thinning rapidly. Recently I was contacted by Dorothy Casmir who had seen the material I had written on Jenny's book.

Dorothy came to NEUC in 1950. There she met Alan who would become her husband. She was taught by Doctor Howie (psychology) as he was then, while she and Alan used to babysit the Voisey children. Alan Voisey was head of geology. My earlier story brought all sorts of memories back and she wanted to contact Jenny or Yvonne Voisey now Roach.

One of the real pleasures of my role as a regional historian lies in the requests I get, the desire people have to learn about their past, to reconnect. I cannot always help. This time I could. With the assistance of the Armidale  Families Facebook page  and Dorothy's son, we were able to put Dorothy in touch with Yvonne. In an email, Dorothy said that they talked and talked and that Yvonne was able to put Dorothy in touch with Jenny. I also had a rather nice email from Alan passing on his recollections of a particular conversation he had with my father. 

Ian Johnstone is an Armidale lawyer and local historian. In 2008, he wrote a full review of Jenny's book.  With his approval, I have reproduced his original review in full without editing. It provides a snapshot of life at the New England University College. Note that I'm not sure that either Readers Companion or Boobooks have copies anymore. I think that it is out of print.  

Book Review

Four Wives: The Story of Four Women Married to foundation Academics Appointed to the New England University College 1938 and 1939

By Jenny Browning

Self published, April 2008. 145 pages, 92 photos, $49.95 including postage from tecprint, P O Box 598, Darling Heights, Queensland 4350, and $39.95 from Readers Companion and Boobook in Armidale.

Ian M Johnstone johnstone@bluepin.net.au December 2008

Jenny Browning has added to the recorded history of part of UNE’s “golden days”.  The first sixteen years of the University of New England, its babyhood and adolescence, as it were, from 1938 to 1954, have long been held in special regard by those fortunate to have experienced any of them.

The NEUC, New England University College, was a College of Sydney University, which employed the staff, and gave the fledgling community university status. NEUC, however, was not a replica of its guardian, and immediately acquired standards and a distinctive corporate spirit of its own. The small community of scholars and students, housed mainly in Boolominbah, the White family mansion beautifully designed by the architect John Horbury Hunt and built in 1888, soon generated its own ethos. This was one of achievement, adventure and excitement which, with sound guidance from understanding administrators, came naturally to those fleeing school and embarking on higher learning of their own choice in an idyllic setting. It was a much appreciated privilege in those days to attend university. It has to be said that NEUC was extraordinarily fortunate in the high quality of its initial academic staff both as scholars and teachers and as strong all-round individuals.

Jenny includes her father Duncan Howie quoting, on page 35, Wordsworth’s lines from his Prelude

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

But to be young was very heaven!

Howie wrote in 1973 in a tone tinged with nostalgia, of ‘the first fine frenzy of whirlwind confusion and desperate improvisation’ in 1938. 

This enthusiasm for learning and for living a full life, engendered by being in a small rural community of scholars is mentioned by many of those who experienced it first hand.

There are many examples of the expression of this in these publications:

1. Margaret Franklin (Ed.) The New England Experience: Inside stories of UNE 1938-1988, UNE Alumni Association, 1987. [Appendix IV, which I compiled, lists the staff members for 1938 and 1939, and their qualifications.]

2. Keith Leopold, Came to Booloominbah, UNE Press, 1998, edited by John S Ryan.

3. J P Belshaw and P E H Barratt, Some Reminiscences about NEUC, 23 Armidale and District Historical Society Journal ADHSJ 1-17, March 1980.

4. Jim Graham, ‘Some Recollections of life at NEUC and UNE 1952-1955’, 45 ADHSJ 1-12 May 2002.

5. The Golden Years: A collection of reminiscences from the pioneers of the New England University College Collected by Elaine and Neil Graham, UNE Alumni Association October 1988, and

6. Margaret Spencer ‘New England University College 1938-1945’, Chapter 17 in The Arts from New England; University Provision and Outreach 1928-1998,edited by J S Ryan, the Faculty of Arts, UNE Alumni and UNE, 1998, pp.231-242.

Three comments from early students will suffice to confirm the point I am making.

Paul Barratt was the first student to arrive on campus in 1938 and returned to it from the war and was later to take the Chair of Psychology. He wrote in 1980:

There was no library, no laboratory and no apparatus.  Everything happened in Booloominbah where students and staff had their bedroom-studies, took their meals and attended classes.  The result of this peculiar set of circumstances was the growth of a very close staff-student relationship characterised by an exceptional dependence upon the staff for support, instructions and guidance.  I must say that, without exception, the staff rose to the occasion and engendered in their pupils a very strong feeling of confidence.  Consequently motivation was high and was enhanced by joint participation in sporting and social activities. 23 ADHSJ p12.

Alwyn Horadam, who arrived as a student in 1940 and was later A/Prof of Mathematics, wrote in 1987:

Perhaps there may have been a touch of magic in the air in those heady days, a feeling of participation in an exhilarating academic adventure.  More to the point, the truth is possibly that the students were a select group with a unity of purpose living in a closed environment…Looking back at these New England experiences, one has a feeling of pride and privilege in having participated in something unique and worthwhile: the birth of a fine university.  Remembrance of Things Past in The New England Experience, p6.

Jim Graham OAM was a student from 1952 to 1955. He taught at TAS for 44 years, 1956-99, wrote A School of their own, the history of TAS, wrote and produced many plays, including Ginger Meggs and Seven Little Australians, and was President of UNE Alumni Association. In 2001 he wrote:

As I reflect I conclude that UNE derived its special character from its relative isolation…The size of the university , in numerical terms, was certainly a factor which contributed to its distinctive personality…..There was a real feeling of corporateness. We were a discernible body…We were a community of teachers and scholars; undergraduates learning not only the prescribed courses of study, but, along with the teachers, learning from each other…The ambience, which was created by the group and the opportunities made available through collegiate life, led students to an understanding and respect for each other and for each other’s prejudices and points of view. 45 ADHSJ p.2.

There are many other sources of descriptions of early UNE including significant memoirs by Don Aitken, Paul Barratt, Noel Beadle, Kathleen Letters and Alan Voisey.

Jenny Browning has now added a new dimension to UNE’s early history, by rescuing details and attitudes from memorabilia, diaries and oral history about the otherwise overlooked wives of the early academic staff. She has brought to centre stage four who were used to working only back-stage. Some precise details will help to introduce these four wives and mothers.

1. Jenny’s father Duncan Howie, M. A. (W. A.) Ph. D. (London) was appointed in 1938, at age 35, to lecture in Philosophy and Psychology, and later had the Chair in Psychology. His wife was Ella Howie (nee Willliams).

2. Ralph G Crossley B. A. (W.A.) Ph.D. (Frieburg) was appointed in 1938 to lecture in French and German. His wife was Hilda Crossley (nee Collet)

3.Dr. H F C Davis, M. Sc. (Sydney) was appointed in 1939 to lecture in Biology. He was born in 1912. He died in Papua New Guinea in WWII in 1944 and the Consett Davis Playing Fields at UNE are named in his memory. He is also commemorated on the war memorial plaque in the circular garden east of the Union building. Cathy Davis was aged 4 when he died. His wife Gwenda Davis (nee Rodway) later lectured in Botany and Zoology at NEUC, but was paid only two thirds of the male rate because she was a woman. (p.72)

4. A H Voisey, M Sc (Syd) was appointed in 1939 to lecture in Geology and Geography, and later had the Chair in Geology. His wife was Phyllis Voisey (nee Cox).

Four of their children, Jenny (which is the affectionate Scottish diminutive of Janet, which her father called her) Browning (nee Howie), Peter Crossley, Cathy Davis and Yvonne Roach (nee Voisey) formed the group ‘The Families of New England University College’ and conferred with Dr Philip Ward at UNE Archives, who helped them considerably with their project. The group’s endeavours resulted in the materials and photos from which this book were quarried and also recorded talks which are now archived as Historical Collections: Families of NEUC, 1938-1954.

Jenny starts her book by quoting the much admired historian Dr John Ferry to the effect that ‘of all social institutions the family is the most significant in shaping people’s lives.’ Colonial Armidale,1999, p.12.. Then, in an appealing mix of the memories of the group of four about their families, anecdotes and relevant academic quotes, she sketches the social mores in Armidale; the scarcely suppressed animosity between the Protestants and the Catholics, the role expectations, especially by and of women, and the contrasting attitudes of university academics, Teachers College staff, graziers and townsfolk to each other.

The Armidale community perceived distinct social differences between vocational teachers’ college academics and university academics who were envisioned as a “rarer” breed. (p76).

Surely most readers will be glad that religious and social differences and divisions do not  now signify as they used to. One form of liberation is to have less social vanity, but perhaps personal vanity has expanded to fill the space vacated!

Jenny quotes Kerry James as writing in 1989:

- Women in particular have a great capacity for exerting social control over one another.  Female networks elaborate and enforce notions of proper and allowable female comportment and deviants are harshly dealt with. (p109) 

The main subject of Jenny’s book is how the four wives responded differently and with varying degrees of defiance to these pressures to conform.

For example, Jenny writes of Gwenda Davis:

Gwenda’s father was a doctor in Nowra and she was well aware of, and had no time for, the snobbery and narrow-mindedness of a rural community. She particularly disliked the controlling behaviour and influence exerted by the women of society’s upper echelons upon other women as to how they should manage their children and run their home.

Jenny quotes a telling phrase from Gwenda’s diary in February 1938…’lest I become a bloody lady!’  Both  p.78. She defied local conventions from the start. She got on instead with her Botany and Zoology lecturing at NEUC.

There is a startling revelation that for NEUC academic staff, being members of NEUC and not of Sydney University, had a huge consequence as well as depriving them of some status. ‘Their salaries were much lower than those of Sydney University lecturers.’  p.70-1. Matthew Jordan in his Jubilee history of UNE A spirit of true learning, UNSW Press, 2004, deals  at length with the tensions between Sydney University and its country ward, but he does not mention this fact. It was a special relief therefore, when autonomy was gained on 1 February 1954. At last academic staff could be represented on the governing body, UNE Council, and new faculties created including Rural Science and Agricultural Economics, and the pay anomalies removed.

There are many other delights to be found in this book; for example, this description of Dr Isabel Blanche who taught French: -

The academics’ children have many fond memories of the quirky, later somewhat eccentric, Miss Blanche…ho cycled to and from the university and everywhere around town, on her ancient black bicycle.  With her longish dresses and high heels, her long hair escaping from her French roll, her black university gown streaming in the breeze threatening to tangle in the back wheel, she rushed about always running late.  As she gaily waved to us children, shouting a greeting, usually in French, the bicycle would wobble alarmingly as we waited in apprehension and wicked childish amusement for her to fall.  (p112)

Jenny has honoured all four wives and mothers, and at the same time, she has written a valuable book about a memorable era in Armidale’s educational and cultural history.

University's growing pains

The appointment in 1966 of Zelman Cowen to replace Robert Madgwick as the University of New England’s Vice-Chancellor was seen, rightly, as a considerable coup. Why, some of his colleagues at Melbourne University asked, had he not gone to Harvard or Cambridge?

After the hard early days, Madgwick had overseen very rapid growth at UNE. This growth is worth recording, for it was during the final Madgwick period that the University moved from a significant to dominant driver in the local economy.

Internal student numbers had grown from 249 in 1955 to 1,396 in 1965. External student numbers had grown from a zero base to 2,568.

Residential: The original Wright College, part of the new buildings constructed under Sir Robert Madgwick. This is the second in a three part series on the life of Sir Zelman Cowen. 

Academic staff had grown from 63 in 1953 to 360 in 1966, while general staff had increased from around 100 to 693. Construction work had boomed.

Madgwick was worried about the speed of growth.

How might the University preserve its collegiate nature and special culture, its outreach? How might it overcome the tendency to become more inward looking, more fragmented, as it grew?

By 1966, Madgwick had formed the view that it might be necessary to cap the size of UNE to preserve its character and the standard of teaching and student experience.

Madgwick was right to be worried.

He did not foresee the social changes that were just getting underway, the proliferation of new universities, the constant changes that would come in policy, the rise of corporatism, managerialism and the mega-university.

However, Madgwick did identify weaknesses within UNE that would later impede its ability to manage change. As the University grew it became comfortable, turned inward, reduced its regional role opening the way for new competitors, and forgot that it had to be better just to survive.

These changes and challenges still lay just ahead when Zelman Cowen arrived in 1967.

Upon arrival, Cowen maintained his role as a public intellectual. In 1967 he prepared the case for the ABC supporting a yes vote on the Aboriginal constitutional referendum, then in 1969 he delivered the ABC Boyer Lectures.

Cowen had long been interested in civil liberties and individual freedoms. His Boyer Lectures, the Private Man, focused on the erosion of privacy, on the challenges presented to society by new technology and the need for law reform to keep pace.

These have become even more pressing topics today.

Cowen’s public activities did increase the public prominence of UNE. His internal influence as VC is more difficult to measure.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 13 November 2019. 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, here 2019  

A note on cave art in Borneo

Twelve months ago, 7 November 2018, a team of researchers published a letter in Nature outlining new discoveries in cave art in Borneo. I missed it at the time. hat tip to Iain Davidson who posted a link on the UNE Archaeology Society Facebook page.

The piece adds to our understanding of the early world the Australian Aborigines travelled through to reach Sahul.

Abstract

Figurative cave paintings from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi date to at least 35,000 years ago (ka) and hand-stencil art from the same region has a minimum date of 40 ka1. Here we show that similar rock art was created during essentially the same time period on the adjacent island of Borneo. Uranium-series analysis of calcium carbonate deposits that overlie a large reddish-orange figurative painting of an animal at Lubang Jeriji Saléh—a limestone cave in East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo—yielded a minimum date of 40 ka, which to our knowledge is currently the oldest date for figurative artwork from anywhere in the world. In addition, two reddish-orange-coloured hand stencils from the same site each yielded a minimum uranium-series date of 37.2 ka, and a third hand stencil of the same hue has a maximum date of 51.8 ka. We also obtained uranium-series determinations for cave art motifs from Lubang Jeriji Saléh and three other East Kalimantan karst caves, which enable us to constrain the chronology of a distinct younger phase of Pleistocene rock art production in this region. Dark-purple hand stencils, some of which are decorated with intricate motifs, date to about 21–20 ka and a rare Pleistocene depiction of a human figure—also coloured dark purple—has a minimum date of 13.6 ka. Our findings show that cave painting appeared in eastern Borneo between 52 and 40 ka and that a new style of parietal art arose during the Last Glacial Maximum. It is now evident that a major Palaeolithic cave art province existed in the eastern extremity of continental Eurasia and in adjacent Wallacea from at least 40 ka until the Last Glacial Maximum, which has implications for understanding how early rock art traditions emerged, developed and spread in Pleistocene Southeast Asia and further afield.
M. Aubert, P. Setiawan, A. A. Oktaviana, A. Brumm, P. H. Sulistyarto, E. W. Saptomo, B. Istiawan, T. A. Ma’rifat, V. N. Wahyuono, F. T. Atmoko, J.-X. Zhao, J. Huntley, P. S. C. Taçon, D. L. Howard & H. E. A. Brand, Palaeolithic cave art in Borneo,  Nature 564, 254–257 (2018) doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0679-9

The story of Zelman Cowen, Australian intellectual, Governor General and UNE's second VC after autonomy

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.  

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 6 November 2019. 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, here 2019  

A note on Lebanese/Syrian settlement in New England

Many early Lebanese migrants arrived in Australia with only a suitcase full of supplies. Walking their way into regional areas, they established businesses that would help many country towns thrive. Yarad's Store Taree. Photo ABC 

Fascinating piece on ABC Mid North Coast (10 November) by Emma Siossian, Jennifer Ingall and Lauren Pezet, Hawkers, haberdashery and hospitality on the history of the Lebanese community in country NSW. Two New England towns, Moree and Taree, were featured.

Before going on, a definitional note. I have used the term Lebanese, but as I have commented before in the context of Germany, the application of labels based on nationality can be misleading. Lebanon did not exist as a country until after the First World War. The first Lebanese settlers in New England came from the then Ottoman province of Syria and were classified as Syrian.

Dan Bros Hawker Van, Taree?, nd, photo ABC

A useful overview of the history of Lebanese  settlement in NSW can be found in Paul Convy, Dr. Anne Monsour, Settlement in
 New South Wales  A Thematic History (Migration Heritage Centre, July 2018).

This paper provides a framework for understanding chain migration, a process similar to that seen with many other groups including the Chinese. It also provides a snapshot of some elements of the Lebanese community and its culture and history.

The Australian Lebanese Historical Society website provides some interesting material on individual Lebanese stories, while the UNE's Heritage Futures data base in  Different Sights - Immigrants in New England provides basic information on many individual stories including those from Lebanon.

One of the challenges in writing a local or regional history and especially a broader regional history is how to place each immigrant thread into a locally or regionally focused context. The broader story of the Lebanese community such as the influence of Sydney's Redfern is only relevant to the extent to which it affects the local or regional story.

I suspect that one common theme lies in the way in which small communities attempted to maintain their culture and links in the face of isolation. It's also interesting in the context of inland New England how the Chinese came to dominate one niche, the Lebanese a second, the Greeks a third. These niches overlapped. 

New England's great literary legacy

Remarkable: Poet and academic Geoffrey Dutton. Asked to identify Australia's 100 greatest books, 17 were linked to Northern NSW.

The 1988 Bicentenary, the celebration of 200 years since the arrival of the first fleet, was contested territory. To many Aboriginal people, this was the invasion. To others, it was a celebration of just what we had achieved.

Regardless of the debate, the Bicentenary was marked by an explosion in history publishing. Some books covered Aboriginal history, some dealt with national themes, while others focused on family, local and regional history.

New England, especially the New England, benefited greatly from books published before, during and just after the Bicentenary. I haven’t done a statistical count, but my feeling is that more books were published in this period than the totality over the last fifteen years.

As part of this process, Australian writer Geoffrey Dutton was commissioned by Angus & Robertson to select 100 books that might be classified as Australia’s greatest books. The result appeared three years before the Bicentenary entitled The Australian Collection: Australia’s Greatest Books.

I purchased it from Boobooks in the first week after I returned to Armidale, taking it outside with my coffee to browse it in the sun.

You will know that I am obsessed with New England’s history. I make no apology for this. It’s my passion.

Sitting there in the sun in the Mall, I did what I always do. I started going through to identify all the books and authors with New England connection.

I couldn’t finish the task. Once my coffee was done, I went home and took the book along with a pad and pen outside to sit in the sun and record.

This was a distraction. I was meant to be unpacking all those horrid boxes, but I sat and read and took notes. I am glad that I did.

I discovered that no less than 17 books or writers had a connection to Northern NSW, my broader New England.

Think about this for a moment.

 Of Professor Dutton’s selection of one hundred greatest Australian books, 17 per cent have some connection with Northern NSW. That’s quite remarkable.

I have been conscious for some time of the contribution made by the broader New England to Australia’s cultural and intellectual history. I didn’t know this when I started researching.

I wonder why it’s not recognized?

Is it just because all the cultural gatekeepers who determine topics and grants live in metropolitan areas? Or is it because we New England historians are too localized and cannot look beyond? 

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 30 October 2019. 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, here 2019