Swinburne University of Technology - Melbourne Australia

Alumni memories bridge a century

Story by Gio Braidotti

It was the Jazz Age, a time of economic depression but high spirits, when trains ran on steam and education for most stopped after the seventh grade. In Melbourne, George Swinburne had made his fortune in engineering, served as state minister for water and agriculture, and was well on his way to pouring £20,000 of his own money into Swinburne Technical College - his platform for education reform.

Founded on the idea that education, while essential for economic progress, should also open broader intellectual windows, by the 1920s the college was offering junior and senior technical education for boys and girls, and a philosophy of stretching students' horizons. Student plumbers, for example, were taught architectural history as a background to their craft, while third-year students, who lacked a playing field, were invited to use the tennis court at George Swinburne's own residence as a way to break the era's social barriers.

At 100 years of age, Harold Popple still recalls his days at both the junior and senior schools. He enrolled in 1920 and went on to become the mechanical engineer who, in 1929, along with a colleague, built the first Australian-made electric washing machine.

Born in 1907 on a farm in Mernda, about 25 kilometres north of Melbourne, Harold sat the entrance exam in 1919, a feat that involved his father bringing him down to Hawthorn in a motorbike sidecar. He distinctly remembers catching sight of the college for the first time. The impression was of an alarmingly huge brick wall, three-storeys high, with no windows or doors: "The only feature I could see was these huge letters running the full length of the building spelling 'Swinburne Technical College' - it was a shock," he says, laughing at the fright he received in his youth. "I wanted to go home, but I didn't tell Dad."

Acceptance into the school meant a daily commute from the farm, initially on steam trains. "I observed the transfer to electric rail. I was fascinated by it."

Another former student from those early - and as a girl, pioneering - years is Alma Reed (née Mackay) a sprightly 94-year-old who, like Harold Popple, gives the impression of being at least a quarter of a century younger. She was at Swinburne for three years from 1927, attending the first technical college to enrol girls. Mind you, contact with the boys was strictly forbidden, although she recalls the prohibition was easily avoided on the daily commute.

Despite the significance of her enrolment in a technical college, her father was unable to be there for the occasion, having been badly affected by mustard gas during World War I. He died when Alma was just nine years old and, as a child of a deceased soldier, her tuition fees were paid for by the philanthropist Sir Samuel McCaughey.

Alma recalls feeling privileged to have been able to enrol and enjoy an education that would otherwise have been denied her. "I loved the education ... subjects included English, biology, maths, art and needlework, which was done by hand since there were no sewing machines."

The students formed an orchestra and choir and Alma played the piano, which she has only recently had to give up playing because of deteriorating eyesight.

For both alumni, there was a particular staff member who made an indelible impression. For Harold it was Fred Green, head of engineering: "He was a typical English gentleman. We christened him 'Pa Green' for the way he came down on students, keeping them on the straight and narrow."

Alma recalls Bettsie Blackmore, the memorably old-fashioned principal of the girls' school whose name still reminds her of the school uniform. "It was horrible," she says, explaining the mortification of having to endure her youth in the Jazz Age while wearing a navy blue tunic, black stockings, hat, gloves and the most risible element - ribbons. She later wrought her revenge by working in fashion design.

Both are proud of their schooling and despite the era's hard economic times, neither recalls the period with any bitterness: "Everyone was poor ... it was a shared circumstance, and while things were tough, we never went hungry," Alma says.

Alma and Harold recall a technically simpler world - no electricity, few motor cars, the wireless, silent movies and footballs made from paper and string.

Having studied at Swinburne during its earliest years, they have watched with pride the college's development over the years and its emergence as a university with a global reputation for innovation and a flair for advanced research and development.

They have high expectations for the next 100 years from the university's engagement with technologies unimaginable in their student days.