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The man whose vision built MonashThe death of Monash University's first vice-chancellor earlier this year has given us cause to remember a man with a vision for a new type of university. SIMON MARGINSON reports.
Matheson was a visionary planner with more than his share of shrewdness and wise enough to take it one day at a time. Persuasive and genial and a natural democrat who mixed freely and kept an open door at least until the university grew too big and student meetings too aggressive he was much liked and highly respected by his contemporaries. A problem solver and learned professional drawn to the sciences and the arts, Matheson had an eye for both the fine detail and the big picture. As another vice-chancellor and later governor-general Sir Zelman Cowen said after Matheson's retirement: "Within a very few years, it [Monash] grew into a university of high national and international standing. That is a great achievement, and it is his great and enduring monument as a vice-chancellor." The physical and human structures put in place in the 1960s at Clayton live on in generations of Victorians and are still at the core of Monash. Under vice-chancellors four and five, Mal Logan and David Robinson, Monash has become the largest university in Australia and has spread to seven other locations including Malaysia and South Africa. Louis Matheson was educated at Bootham School and Manchester University and practised as a civil engineer (193338), marrying Audrey Wood in 1937. After lecturing at Birmingham University, he became professor of engineering at the University of Melbourne in 1946, working under Robert Blackwood, later the first Monash chancellor, until 1951. After a short interlude in the UK, the Mathesons returned to Australia in late January 1960 to find plenty of space at Clayton (an almost empty 115 hectares) but little time. Monash University was due to open its five faculties at the beginning of the next year. "The administrative staff occupied the garage and some of the bedrooms of my house," Matheson later recalled. "Several professors were in the gardener's cottage, and others used some huts that were hired from the builders." 1960 was a wet winter, the site refused to drain and the Clayton clay turned into a sea of mud. Somehow they made it, and on 11 March 1961 the university was opened by the Victorian Premier, Sir Henry Bolte. The early pace of growth was astonishing. From 363 students in 1961, the university doubled in each of the next three years and reached 11,034 by 1971. As each new building was opened, existing services and faculties were moved the library shifted five times before it was finally housed. Matheson oversaw 57 major building projects. The watchword was "no Taj Mahals, no Sydney Opera houses". What was needed was speed and practicality: cost-efficient structures that could house the ever-growing demand for tertiary education. To a later eye, though, the native plantings in the grounds are attractive, the buildings sound but undistinguished, with a few exceptions such as the French window in the Robert Blackwood Hall. The academic foundations were of higher quality. Matheson chose brilliant local professors in their 30s rather than British imports. The result was long and outstanding research and teaching careers, such as those of Ron Brown in Chemistry and Carl Wood in Obstetrics and Gynae-cology. The vice-chancellor had a rare eye for talent and knew when to say no: "A good vacancy is better than a bad appointment," he said. The educational structure was patterned on the University of Melbourne La Trobe, Victoria's third university, was more experimental but in some respects Clayton was ahead of its time. Monash recognised an obligation to the descendants of Australia's Indigenous inhabitants by creating scholarships and a Centre of Research into Aboriginal Affairs, John Legge instigated a Centre for South-East Asian Studies, and there was an early Master of Environmental Science degree. Starting with the enormous Menzies building, all structures had ramps and lifts, and students in wheelchairs began to enrol in numbers. In some ways it was an easier time. The growing role of universities was unquestioned, and public money was generous by later standards. A vice-chancellor did not have to grab market share, run businesses or even hire casual staff. Nevertheless, the leaders of the time must meet the tasks of the time and it is hard to imagine how Matheson could have built the university better. Nor did he neglect his broader obligations: he was active in planning education in Victoria and PNG, and in CSIRO, the Commonwealth Association of Universities and the Institution of Engineers, Australia. He was a member of the Royal Commission into the collapse of the King's Street bridge. The second half of Matheson's tenure was soured when the university became the site of aid for the Vietnamese National Liberation Front, a mock crucifixion and the largest student meetings in Australia. Monash's rawness and growth had coincided with the peak of the Vietnam war and the global protest movement. Matheson did not shape the student movement. Only later did it turn inward, directing its main fire against university administrations. But the media held him to blame. He was worn down by the daily battle of wits with student leaders and hit hard by the occupation of his office. This articulate man suffered a stroke in his second decade of retirement and lost the power of speech. Confined to a wheelchair, Louis Matheson remained keenly intelligent, following events in the newspapers and retaining some contact with the university. Lady Audrey continued to care for him at home until the very last days. He died at 90, survived by Lady Audrey and their three sons. Simon Marginson is a professor of education at Monash University and the author of Monash: Remaking the University (2000). |
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Louis Matheson was a British engineering professor who became a great institution-builder in Australia as the first vice-
chancellor of Monash University.