Hunter Living Histories

“Chasing Our Pioneering Tales” Great Stories From the Secret Archives.
Recorded: 16 February 2005
University of Newcastle (Australia)

A Gathering of the Founding Mothers and Fathers

It was twenty years ago, back in 2005, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of an autonomous University of Newcastle, that we held a gathering of surviving founding mothers and fathers of the University and its companion institutions. The Gathering was held in the Archives Rare Books & Special Collections in Auchmuty Library.

 

What were these “companion institutions”?

In the words of Emeritus Professor Ken Dutton, the University of Newcastle (Australia) is an “amalgam” of educational institutions that all amalgamated in 1989, each with their own histories and timelines.

The University of Newcastle that became an autonomous institution in 1965 had its birth as a Newcastle University College of the New South Wales University of Technology that was founded on the 3rd December 1951. See the timeline here

In 1989, the University of Newcastle amalgamated with:

• The Newcastle Teachers’ College founded in 1949, see the timeline here
• The Newcastle Conservatorium of Music founded in 1957, see the timeline here

Chasing Our Pioneering Tales (2005)

A Council of the Elders to recount  tales of the early years…it is haunting to think that the room was filled with these people, many who have since all left us; but their voices, laughter and memories remain with these recordings.

00:00:00 – 00:03:28 Ken Dutton introduces the prehistory or paleo-history of the University.

00:03:28 – 00:06:10 Alan Barcan (with Noel Rutherford) on the Newcastle Teachers’ College

00:06:10 – 00:07:35 Arthur Harris Newcastle Teachers’ College Pioneer Session 1949

00:07:35 – 00:07:50 Alan Barcan on Grif Duncan

00:07:50 – 00:09:31 Laurie Short on Grif Duncan

00:09:31 – 00:10:52 Terry Ryan on Grif Duncan and the Women in Red

 

More on Grif Duncan

Mr Griffith H. Duncan 1914-1988 Hall of Fame

 

00:10:52 – 00:12:03 Ted Flowers on the Importance of the Newcastle Technical College

00:12:03 – 00:20:17 Pat Flowers on working as a Librarian since 1943

00:20:17 – 00:22:10 Ken Dutton on the Conservatorium of Music, Florence Austral, mid ’50s.

00:22:10 – 00:25:57 John Bach on J.J. Auchmuty and the Israelites

00:25:57 – 00:28:32 J.J. Auchmuty, First Vice Chancellor from Pat & Ted Flowers, Ken Dutton

00:28:32 – 00:33:50 Laurie Short on Auchmuty and the idea of a future autonomous University

00:33:50 – 00:36:45 Noel Rutherford on Auchmuty and Mr Manning Who Kept Geese.

00:36:45 – 00:37:19 John Armstrong’s Story about Auchmuty (through Ken)

 

More on Professor James Johnston Auchmuty

https://livinghistories.newcastle.edu.au/nodes/view/55006

 

 

00:37:19 – 00:38:14 Vicky Peterson on the General Staff perspective

00:38:14 – 00:39:30 Ken Dutton on Kelver Hartley Professor of French

00:39:30 – 00:53:53 Terry Ryan and Ken Dutton on Godfrey Tanner

 

More on Emeritus Professor Godfrey Tanner

Professor Emeritus Godfrey Tanner Turns 80

Emeritus Professor Ronald Godfrey Tanner & Collected Papers

 

 

00:53:53 – 00:54:30 Greg Preston announces his research on the Newcastle Teachers’ College

00:54:30 – 00:55:53 Ted Flowers on the Staff House, the Bishop & Raw Fish

00:55:53 – 01:00:07 Tom Jones’ Tribute to Grif Duncan, Godfrey Tanner, Harold Lobb and Lionel Fredman

01:00:07 – 01:05:34 Don Parkes

01:05:34 – 01:08:34 Ken Dutton on J.J. Auchmuty & the Valediction

01:08:34 – 01:10:44 Ted Flower’ Posthumous Confession to Kelver Hartley

01:10:44 – 01:11:24 Closing Remarks

 

Master of Ceremonies
Emeritus Professor Ken Dutton

 

 

Welcome to Country
Aunty Nola Hawken

Filmed by:
Bruce Turnbull and Gary Stacker

In Memoriam:

Nola Hawken,
Dr Alan Barcan,
Pat & Ted Flowers,
John Bach,
Laurie Short,
Arthur Harris,
Tom Jones,
Noel Rutherford,
Dr Lionel Fredman,
Gregg Heathcote.

Some Further “Founding Mothers” Missing From The Stories: Vera Deacon

A 16 year old Vera Deacon living on Moscheto Island (in the Hunter estuary) wrote to the Newcastle Morning Herald in 1943 calling for an improvement in Educational facilities across the board as part of our post war plans.

POSTWAR PLANS (1943, November 6). Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate (NSW : 1876 – 1954), p. 6. Retrieved January 31, 2025, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article133422275

 

‘Dame’ Mabel Whiley: ‘Founding Mother’ of the University of Newcastle
By Jude Conway

(Slightly edited version of an article published in a 2014 University of Newcastle Opus magazine)

Founding Fathers? Where Are The Mothers?

While researching local women’s history I came across a book about the University of Newcastle with a photo of fourteen men which was labelled the ‘Founding Fathers’. My immediate response was what about Mabel Whiley? She should be called a ‘Founding Mother’ of the University of Newcastle.

Early Education of Mabel Whiley (nee Farrell)

Mabel was a clever girl and as Mabel Farrell was selected to attend Newcastle High School ‘on the Hill’ in 1919. “Its beguiling antiquity enthralled me” she poetically recalled. Mabel burnt the candle at both ends to win one of the few scholarships to Sydney University, there being no university at the time in the city of Newcastle.

Mabel Farrell graduated B.Sc. Dip Ed, and spent years teaching around the state, returning to her home town in 1942 as a science teacher at Newcastle Girls High School. She married George Whiley that year and as Mabel Whiley became a ‘well-known local identity’.

Married Women Forced to Resign but Mabel Continues Teaching

The Married Women (Lecturers and Teachers) Act had been passed in 1932 to force women to resign from permanent teaching when they tied the knot. Three years later the Education Minister gained the right to retain married women in special circumstances. Perhaps the small number of female science teachers, combined with the shortage of male teachers during the war, were the special circumstances that allowed Mabel to continue teaching. Or it may have been because she was ‘little and fierce’ and usually made things happen the way she wanted them to.

Enigmatically her students remember Mabel Whiley wearing low cut or see-through blouses to school, but despite this image of being lightweight, she was a ‘highly competent’ teacher who cared about her students’ education and was distressed about the ‘tremendous wastage’ when girls of ‘high intellect’ left before the final year of high school.

‘The Dynamic Mabel’ as Education Lobbyist for a University

To make it easier for local students to obtain tertiary education, Mabel played a key role in detailing the need for a local university then lobbying the NSW government to establish facilities in Newcastle. An ad hoc group to push for a university was set up in 1950 which included ‘the dynamic Mabel’, her brother Tom Farrell and Griff Duncan, with Mabel a regular spokesperson to the newspaper. In early 1951 the more formal Newcastle University Establishment Group (NUEG) was formed and Mabel was the only member continuing on the executive.

The Successful Outcomes Newcastle University College (1951)

After collecting names of 175 prospective students and 14,500 signatures of support (Mabel organised women and senior schoolgirls in street drives), NUEG were spectacularly successful in persuading the NSW government to set up Newcastle University College which was opened in the Technical College buildings in Tighes Hill on 3 December 1951.

Update to “Founding Fathers” Photograph

The ‘Founding Fathers’ photo is of an interim Council of the University of Newcastle in 1962, and Mabel Whiley who was a school principal by then, is not in the picture. To make up for that oversight I posthumously declare Mabel Whiley to be a Founding Mother of the University of Newcastle, and to be known, in the retrograde spirit of the times, as Dame Mabel Whiley. [1]

[1]  Tony Abbott was prime minister in 2014 and had briefly re-introduced Australian knighthoods and damehoods

By Judy Conway (2014)

 

Further Reading Based Upon The Memories of the Elders

Mr Griffith H. Duncan 1914-1988 Hall of Fame

UON C50- PART 1 – ASPIRATIONS FOR A UNIVERSITY

C50-PART 2 -AUTONOMY & EARLY PARTNERS

University’s Grant of Arms and Autonomy Day

UON60: The Prehistory of the University of Newcastle – Newcastle University College (1951-1964)

Gionni Di Gravio OAM
University Archivist & Chair, Hunter Living Histories