VOLUME V ❖ ISSUE 2: UQ CENTENARY ❖ 2011 ❖ 19–33 An interdisciplinary journal for the study of history, philosophy, religion, and classics THE FORGAN SMITH BUILDING AND THE GREAT COURT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND INVEST I NG I N THE FUTURE Clive Moore The Forgan Smith Building is the centrepiece of the Great Court complex at the core of The University of Queensland’s St. Lucia campus. Construction began in 1937, the Forgan Smith Building was completed in the early 1950s, and the Great Court was completed in the 1970s. The construction of the Great Court complex was a statement by the Queensland Govern- ment and the university that Queensland intended to take tertiary education seriously and that Queensland was an equal of other Australian states. The Great Court is a unique space of historical and cultural importance which has now influenced generations of students and staff through its powerful gravitas and iconic power. This article looks at the construction of the Great Court and how it became embedded in the collective memory of The University of Queensland. onstruction of the Forgan Smith building on the St. Lucia campus of The University of Queensland Cbegan in 1937. It remains the main building on the campus and when it was first built was one of the most impressive in any Australian university. During its century of existence, the university has produced many histories. The largest was produced in its seventy-fifth year, authored by Malcolm Thomis. For its hundredth year, The University of Queensland produced a short, largely pictorial, study by Ben Robertson.1 Buildings loom quite large in these histories, but the emphasis here is on the construction of just one building—the Forgan Smith—and its relationship with the other Great Court buildings and the unique sculptural work that unites the complex.2 The argument suggests that although the building project was initiated during the Great Depression as part of deliberate stimulus of the economy, and it took another thirty-five years to complete, the construction of the Great Court complex was also a statement by the Queensland Government and the university that Queensland intended to take tertiary education seriously, and that Queensland was an equal of other Australian states. Construction of the Forgan Smith building and the Great Court complex signified a change in emphasis in a rural State which had until then placed a low emphasis on the education of its citizens. It was the first time that the Queensland Government invested a large sum of money in tertiary education, and signified a change in attitudes that, after the Second World War, was also taken up by the Commonwealth Government 1. Malcolm I. Thomis, A Place of Light and Learning: The University of Queensland’s First Seventy-Five Years (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1985); Ben Robertson, The People’s University: 100 Years of The University of Queensland (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2010). 2. This article is an extension of a section of Clive Moore, The Forgan Smith: History of a Building and its People at The University of Queensland (St. Lucia: The University of Queensland, 2010). CLIVE MOORE is Professor of Pacific and Australian History, and Head of the School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics, at The University of Queensland. His major and rather eclectic publications have been on Australia’s Pacific Island immigrants, the Pacific labour reserve, Australian federation, masculinity, gay Queensland, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands. Crossroads ISSN 1833-878X. MOORE ❖ THE FORGAN SMITH BUILDING AND THE GREAT COURT 20 though its Universities Commission. Today, tertiary education is a multi-billion dollar business, and The University of Queensland has positioned itself as both a leading university in Australia and competitive in the international market. In the 1930s, when the decision was made to construct the new campus, none of this was envisaged, yet the investment was substantial and showed great foresight. The University of Queensland is a community and its buildings are embedded in the cultural memory of the State of Queensland. The Forgan Smith and the surrounding Great Court buildings have been absorbed into the collective memory of its students and staff, providing a shared experience of engaging in the privileged journey of higher education. The Great Court is a unique space of histori- cal and cultural importance which has now influenced generations of students and staff through its powerful gravitas and iconic power. Governors-General, Premiers and captains of industry have been affected by this cultural core. The Great Court is central to the memories of all University of Queensland students, although few know the history of its creation nor the long period of time involved. As one of the most important cultural spaces in Queensland, its influence on them has been profound. THE BEG I NN I NGS The idea of a university in Brisbane to serve Queensland was first mooted in 1874, although the real impetus came from a Royal Commission in 1891.3 In 1893, a Queensland University Extension Board affiliated with the University of Sydney began to provide lectures, matriculation classes and examinations for the University Extension Certificate.4 Then, as part of the celebrations to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Colony of Queensland, The University of Queensland begun by Act of Parliament in 1909, officially came into existence in 1910, and received its first students in 1911. Although there were pretensions to match the older universities in the southern capitals, it was also to be a working man’s university, training students to increase the level of technical education in the rural State. Old Government House at the bottom end of George Street was chosen as the initial site for The University of Queensland. Situated on 14.97 hectares (37 acres) of the Domain next to the Botanic Gardens in the inner city, the building was the residence of Queensland’s Governors from 1862 until 1910. Its size, location, and availability made the building a highly attractive location. In its early years The University of Queensland had three faculties: Arts, Science and Engineering, with an emphasis on practical activities that would benefit the pastoral, agricultural and mining economy. Over the following decades, the academic core expanded: Commerce and Agriculture were added in 1926; Law and Dentistry in 1935; Veterinary Science and Medicine in 1936; Education in 1949; and Architecture in 1950.5 Student numbers increased from 83 in 1911, to 1,613 in 1939. In 1935, UQ had 1,090 students, thirteen Professors, two Readers or Associate Professors, twenty-one Lecturers and Senior Lecturers, and ten Tutors and Demonstrators.6 A mismatched series of buildings surrounded Old Government House (called Main building), crowded into the grounds, and the University was accommodated in other inner city buildings.7 UQ needed a large new area of land, impossible within the bounds of the Domain, and initially (from the 1900s) the plan was to create a new campus in Victoria Park, 20 hectares (60 acres) opposite the present-day Herston campus, although the site was small and hilly. 3. Hon. T. A. Johnson in the debate over the University of Queensland Bill, Legislative Assembly, 23 November 1909, Queensland Parliamentary Debates (Brisbane: Goprint); Carole Ferrier and Ken Mansell, “Student Revolt, 1960s and 1970s” in Radical Bris- bane: an Unruly History, ed. Raymond Evans, Carole Ferrier and Jeff Rickertt (Carlton, Vic.: Vulgar Press, 2004), 266–272: 266. 4. F. W. Robinson, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Brisbane (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1957), 3. 5. These dates come from a manuscript by F. W. Robinson (F. W. Robinson, Manuscript [Fryer Library, UQ5, Box 11, 482]). Archi- tecture sometimes is said to have begun in 1948. 6. The University of Queensland, University of Queensland Jubilee, 1910-1960 (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1960), 2. 7. J. D. Story, Vice-Chancellor, to Under Secretary, Chief Secretary’s Department, 16 November 1943, Facilities—Buildings—The University of Queensland, 19/5/3 Part 1, A1361 (National Archives of Australia [NAA]). ❖ VOLUME V ❖ ISSUE 2 21 Plans to alleviate the over-crowding moved one stage further in 1926, when two children of a wealthyAn interdisciplinary Brisbane journal for the study family, Dr. James O’Neil Mayne and his sister Mary Emelia Mayne, offered £50,000 of history, philosophy, religion, and classics to purchase 111 hectares (331 acres) of land at St. Lucia in the bend of the Brisbane River.8 The St. Lucia name came from the birth place of W. A. Wilson, one of the 1880s developers of the land subdivision, who was born on the island of Saint Lucia in the West Indies. The final cost to the Maynes was over £60,000, and the final area, with the addition of land on the west side of Mill Road, consisted of 98 hectares (242 acres).9 The St. Lucia land was resumed by the Brisbane City Council, and the title of the consolidated site handed to UQ’s Chancellor, Sir James Blair, by Alderman William Jolly in 1930. The university then surrendered its interests in the Victoria Park site and in return received 3.678 hectares (11 acres) adjacent to the Brisbane General Hospital, upon which the Medical School building was erected, opened in August 1939.10 The St. Lucia land is situated on a boundary between the lands of the Turrbal and Jagera Aboriginal peoples. The typical pattern of early European settlement in the nineteenth century was to mark out large pastoral leases: the St. Lucia bend of the river was included in the land of John Frederick McDougall, who had pegged out the northern bank of the river from Milton to Moggill in 1855.