A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND 1883,1983 Of the four New Zealand univers1t1es which date their beginnings to the nineteenth century, Auck­ land is the last to have found a historian. First as a College teaching students to be examined by the University of New Zealand, and only in the last two decades as an autonomous, degree-granting institu­ tion, the University in Auckland now has a full cen­ tury of life to be recorded. Keith Sinclair tells some remarkable stories, from the feud between the Professor of Mathematics and the Chairman of the College Council over the Chairman's son stabling his horses in the College stables; to the Professor of Economics (and Mental and Moral Science, Commercial Geography, and History!) who conned money from his colleagues; to the row in the 1960s when a security agent was detected pursuing his enquiries on campus. As one would expect from a historian of Professor Sinclair's calibre, serious themes emerge and are pur­ sued: in particular how an essentially British institu­ tion was adapted to serve the New Zealand city to which it was, on the face of it, least suited. The first professors were British, exa•nination papers were marked in Britain until the second world war, British influence showed in the low priority given to research as against teaching. At the same time, limited resources, mainly part-time study, and the demands of a pragmatic and practical community shifted the College from the British pattern. In the last generation, with rapid expansion, increase in full-time study, European and American as well as British influences, and a predominance of New Zealand graduates on the staff, the university came much closer to the traditional functions of preserving, extending, and transmitting knowledge. That expansive phase may now be almost over. As a former student of the University and a member of its staff since 194 7, Professor Sinclair has participated in many of the later events described and has known participants of earlier ones. He never lets the reader forget that the story of a university is the story of people-of students as well as of administrators and academic staff. He has drawn tellingly on the records and memories of the taught as well as of the teachers. Keith Sinclair, Professor of History at the University of Auckland, is the author of, among other books, A History of New Zealand, The Origins of the Maori Wars, William Pember Reeves, and Walter Nash. He has also published volumes of verse and a children's book. OXFORD JACKET John O'Regan A History of the University of Auckland 1883,1983 KEITH SINCLAIR Assisted by T rudie McNaughton AUCKLAND UNIVERSITY PRESS OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS (£, Ketrh Sindair 191B Fir�r ruhllshcd 198 3 PRINTED IN NEW ZEALAND Design, rvpcscrring, and rrinring hy rhc Univcrsirv of Auckland Bindery ISH� L1 Jll 64�t12J � In rrnnsmarine migration, the soctal apparnrus of the migrants has to he pncked on hoard ship before they cnn le<1ve the shores of the old country <�nd then unpacked <�gain at the end of the voyage heforc they can make rhemselves at home on new ground. All kind,., of apparnrus-persons and property, tech­ niques nnd institutions and ideas-arc equally subject to this law. Anything that cannot srand the sea vovage m all has simply to he left hehind; and many things-and these not only material ohjects-which the migranrs do manage ro wke with them can only he �hipped after they have been taken to pieces-never, perhaps, to he reassembled in their original form. ArnoiJ Toynbee, A Sucd_v of Histarv, 2nJ eJ., 6rh impression, 1955, ll. 88. Contents Preface ix I The Idea of a University nt Auckland, 1854-82 1 ll Establishing the College, 1883-93 20 III College Council versus Professorial Board, 1883-93: the Dismissal of Professor Aldis 41 IV College Life, 1893-1919: Students 59 V College Life, 1893-1919: Staff and Studies 75 VI The Site Row, 1905-19 94 VII Provincialism and Professional Education: the 'Special Schools', 1898-1928 llO Vlll The Twenties: Torpor and Progress 124 IX Academic Freedom: the College in the Depression, 1930-5 145 X New Zealanders and Britons, 1935-49 169 XI Crisis in the University, 1950-60 191 XII The Site Row Revived, 1949-60 223 XIII University Life, 1960-70: an Academic Boom 241 XIV University Life, 1960-70: Student Demonstrations and Other Strife 255 XV Creating a Medical School, 1944-74 270 XVI The Modern University and its Problems, 1970-82: an Interim Report 285 Appendix: Administrators, Teachers, and Librarians, 1883-1982 305 References 323 Bibliography 343 Index 349 Preface HE debt of a former colony to its imperial origins is not the principal theme T of this book, yet, as with many investigations of New Zealand history, the research quite properly began in England, in fact in the library of the Institute of Education in London, where I was appalled to discover, in 1978, how many books had been written on the histories of universities. Those I read sometimes appear in references or in the text but arc not listed it) the bibliography, since the pre­ sent history is not a comparative study. They included histories of universities of a number of countries and centuries. What this history attempts to reveal are the ways in which the people in a new university progressively adapted their institution to a new environment, and how the people at large reacted to the presence of a university in their mid�t. There is another respect in which this narrative may disappoint the expectations of people who arc knowledgeahle about university histories. Though the University of Auckland wns n part of the University of New Zealand from 1883 to 1961, not much is said about the University of New Zealand. There are two reasons for this authorial decision.]. C. Beagle hole and Hugh Parton have already published detailed histories of thar University. Moreover, it rnrc!y loomed as large in the minds o( Auckland university people as it did in the south. It arose from a dispute between Canterbury and Otngo, and was later given a home in Wellington. It is doubtful whether any Aucklandcrs ever (elr much loyalty to that University and certainly none ever loved it. It may be useful to explain ro reader� unfamiliar with rhc history of the University of New Zenland thnt it was a 'non-teaching' univcr!;ity, resembling the University of London. The teaching was cnrried out in constituent Colleges, while the University of New Zealand itself was responsible for conducting examinations. Hence the stan­ dard of the degree� was cstahlishcd nationally. A further point which may cause confusion was that the University of New Zealand wns, except (or two brief ix A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND periods when it had a Council, administered by a Senate. When the University of New Zealand was abolished in 1961, the Professorial Board of the University of Auckland took the name of 'Senate'. Any mention of a Senate before 1962 refers to the University of New Zealand and after 1961 to the University of Auckland. It is noticeable in most university histories that the authors faced difficulties in discussing recent events. For instance, it is impossible in the history of a large institu­ tion, such as the University of Auckland, to refer to many of the existing staff: by contrast, in this narrative, most of the staff before World War IT receive mention. More important, recent events cannot be viewed in the same perspective as those more remote. It is not safe to extrapolate recent changes into the future: in other words, it is not clear which changes will be seen to be phases and which will prove to be trends. Consequently l have chosen to write what I call 'an interim report' on the state of the University at the beginning of the nineteen-eighties, leaving any more searching assessment to some future author. In an interesting but not over-serious review of 'The History and Historiography of New Zealand Universities' in 1973, John Pocock, a distinguished professor of intellec­ tual history, formerly of Canterbury and in 1981 at Johns Hopkins, wrote: In nine years' time, it is worth reflecting, we are to have an Auckland University centennial and, presumably, an Auckland centennial history which, if written with the intimacy and frankness that characterize the Canterbury volume, should prove a very remarkable chronicle indeed. Of course, it may be that the Auckland tradition of studied indifference to the opinion, and even the existence, of the rest of academic mankind will prevent its being com­ posed or published at al\.1 Pocock thought that a history of a university should be affectionate as well as critical. The first history of the University of· Auckland has necessarily to be an intimate narrative, for unlike the Universities of Otago, Canterbury, and Victoria, Auckland did not publish a history to mark its fiftieth anniversary, which fell during a severe economic depression, in 1933. The students did publish a book of rcminiscences,2 but there was no history based on extensive research to lay the groundwork for a later and different volume, in the way that Ernest Scott's History of the University of Melbourne (1936) provided a background of recorded detail for Geoffrey Blainey's interesting and relaxed Centenary History of Melbourne (1957) or ]. C. Beaglehole's history of Victoria University College3 will enable the next Wellington university historian to proceed in different directions. Universities have Long memories. The great Abraham Flexner wrote in his book on universities, in 1930, that his brother had sent him to Johns Hopkins in 1884.4 I enrolled at the Auckland University College in 1940.