Official opening of International House

International House is probably Australia’s most tangible expression of its new consciousness of Asia.

Geoffrey Blainey, 1957

International House in Melbourne was officially opened by Prime Minister Robert Menzies on 24 May 1958. It was a sunny Saturday and Empire Day, the precursor to the King’s Birthday holiday. Also at the event were Ian Clunies Ross (the first Chair of the International House Council), Arthur Dean (Chancellor of the University of Melbourne), George Paton (Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne), Brian Jones (the first Warden of International House) and hundreds of volunteers and other supporters of the International House project.

Ian Clunies Ross was given the job of introducing the Prime Minister. He used his speech to highlight the significance of ‘the House’, the first of its kind in Australia:

[I]t is something rather unusual I believe in the life of Melbourne, and in a sense in the life of the Commonwealth, in that here for the first time we have an institution in which young Australians and young overseas students are working together day by day and learning to know and understand each other.

Clunies Ross, 1958

Menzies reflected on similar themes:

[T]his International House is one of the splendid conceptions in university history. I have nothing but praise for it myself, because it recognises that if you bring together into one place people of intelligence, students coming from different backgrounds, coming from old and different cultures and absorbing something of a new one, then you are bound to increase the area of human understanding and the possibilities, the probabilities, of genuine friendship between the peoples of the world.

Menzies, 1958

After the speeches, guests enjoyed tea and were invited to view some of the student rooms ‘specially tidied’ (Paton, 1958) for the event. In the evening there was a dinner dance, with International House residents providing both food and entertainment (“Students Turn on Food”, 1958).

The official opening was captured by photographers from the Australian News and Information Bureau, as well as by International House residents Soedjadi Sastrosoegito and Richard Shiell. Their photographs offer more informal views of the event: the Prime Minister speaking from a makeshift podium, neighbours peeking over the fence and press photographers with their unwieldy cameras looking out for a shot.

Interviewed by The Age newspaper, the Warden Brian Jones reflected on the broader meaning of the opening of International House. For Jones, IH symbolised ‘our realisation that the people of South-East Asia are our next-door neighbours and the resolve that we in Australia shall prove good neighbours and good hosts’ (Sayers, 1958). For the historian Geoffrey Blainey too, Melbourne’s International House was ‘Australia’s most tangible expression of its new consciousness of Asia’ (Blainey, 1957, p. 203).

References and further reading

Blainey, G. (1957). A centenary history of the University of Melbourne. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press.

Clunies Ross, I. (1958, May 24). Speech at the opening of International House in Melbourne. Papers of Sir Robert Menzies, National Library of Australia, MS 4936. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-222147088/listen/0-104

Menzies, R. G. (1958, May 24). Speech at the opening of International House in Melbourne. Papers of Sir Robert Menzies, National Library of Australia, MS 4936. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-222147088/listen/0-985

Paton, G. W. (1958, May 24). Speech at the opening of International House in Melbourne. Papers of Sir Robert Menzies, National Library of Australia, MS 4936. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-222147088/listen/0-1375

Sayers, S. (1958, May 24). Where men from many lands work together. The Age.

Students turn on food and floor show (1958, May 26). The Sun.