The path to Clunies

The wet and windy conditions of 24 May 1958 did little to stifle the atmosphere of optimism at the official opening of International House’s first accommodation wing. Ian Clunies Ross (1899-1959), after whom the wing was named in 1962 (International House Council Minutes, 1962), commended all those who “worked for so long and so nobly” to fund the wing, including international, federal, and state governments, International House Auxiliaries, and the Rotary Club, of which he was a member (Clunies Ross, 1958). He handed the floor to the then Prime Minister, Robert Menzies, who had nothing but praise for the internationalist ethos of the new wing and those who worked for it, aside from a good-natured jab about the blown out cost of constructing the other two buildings originally proposed for the wing (Menzies, 1958).

The tumultuous half-century prior to the opening of International House prompted the Australian government and public to re-evaluate their place in the international community. The Immigration Restriction Act 1901, colloquially known as the White Australia policy, preventing non-white immigration into Australia, came under increasing scrutiny from several sources. With previously colonised Asian and African nations gaining independence and acceptance internationally, and with an emerging young, educated middle-class who saw racial hierarchy as an ‘exploded myth’, continuing with the racist and exclusionary policy was quickly becoming unfeasible (Tavan, 2001, p. 185; Immigration Reform Group, 1960, p. 7.).

Another factor helping to delegitimise the policy was the increasing number of Asian students in Australia. The explosion of university enrolments domestically was mirrored in a similar increase of international enrolments for Australian universities (Larkins, 2018, p. 1). The Colombo Plan, established in 1951, which focused on economic and social development in Asian countries also ran a scholarship program which allowed students from Asian member-countries, including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Laos, India, and the Philippines, to attend university in Australia (Larkins, 2018, p. 4). In 1952, there were only approximately 500 international students from Asia in Melbourne (Medley, 1952). By 1957, 2,000 students had studied under the plan. In 1959, there were 450 Colombo Plan scholars as well as 2,350 private overseas students studying in Australia (Oakman, 2002, p. 90).

The drive for an inclusive residential college emerged from the difficulties that international students faced finding suitable accommodation. Asian students in Melbourne prior to the 1950s felt this problem acutely with many housed in unsafe, cramped accommodation and subject to precarious agreements which could see them out on the street at the whims of their landlord (International House Council Minutes, 1956). This was exacerbated by the increase in need for student housing, given the increase in university enrolments, which saw Asian students losing out against their white classmates (Murray, 1957, 50). It was estimated that in 1949 there were up to 1,000 international students who were “unsatisfactorily housed” (Dimmick, 1959, p. 25).

The 1949 Student Needs Conference run by the University of Melbourne Student Representative Council brought the issue of housing into focus and an International Hostel Committee was formed (Dimmick, 1959, p. 25). This council agreed that the proposed hostel should accept 100 to 120 students with an even split of domestic and international students. The goal here, first and foremost, was to remedy the housing shortage, but in another sense also sought to foster “international cooperation and goodwill” (University of Melbourne Gazette, 1952) in line with the mood of students who saw the White Australia policy as a relic of the past (Hicks, 1959). With this, the path to establishing an accommodation wing committed to giving overseas students a home “worthy of Australia” and offering the “hospitality for which Australia is renowned” was set upon (An International House for Australia, 1953).

The main faces of these early stages on the path to the Clunies Ross Wing were Abinasti Jerath, an architecture student from India and later member of the SRC and Hostel Committee; Rajaratnam Sundarason, a Colombo Plan medical student from Singapore and Hostel Committee member; and Samuel Dimmick, a commerce student from Australia and member of the SRC and Hostel Committee (Coppel, 2007). These young men, alongside a host of others, not least of all the women of the International House Auxiliaries spurred by their own difficulties securing accommodation or affected by those stories, set to the task of raising money for the proposed house.

Dimmick and Sundarason engaged overseas stakeholders, such as the editor of the Malay Mail and Reverend Canon R.K.S. Adams, to secure potential leads for funding overseas (Sundarason, 1953). These fundraising efforts secured £130,961 ($4,7839,399.22 in 2022) by 1955. The governments of Malaya (now Malaysia), Sarawak, and Singapore donated £20,000 ($723,787.88) (International House Council, 1956). Australian federal and state funding also provided £50,000 ($1,809,469.70) and £5,000 ($180,946.97), respectively, to the cause of International House (Murray, 1957). With this, planning and construction could begin.

Through the work of the Hostel Committee (now reconstituted as the International House Committee), more details were decided upon. In order to relieve some of the pressures of cost, to accommodate students who were often on tight budgets, the house was proposed to differ from the typical model of a residential college. Students would be expected to assist with maintenance tasks around the house, meals would be served cafeteria style, and formal dinners would be infrequent. Non-residential membership, allowing access to the facilities but not a room, was suggested as another measure to generate income once the house was running (Dimmick, 1959). Though these were practical decisions economically, they also sought to foster community in the house. By allowing a maximum number of students to experience the college environment and interact with students from a vast number of countries and backgrounds, the house facilitated cross-cultural understanding that few other institutions in Australia could say they did.

Though construction of the Clunies Ross Wing was mostly finished by late 1956, with the Warden’s residence and offices to be finished in 1957, its completion couldn’t come soon enough (Larkins, 2018, p. 17). Troubles finding secure accommodation had persisted, particularly for international students, and the summer Olympic Games hosted in Melbourne added to this precarity. Scheduled to begin on 22 November 1956, it coincided with the end of the exam period. Rumors spread among students that, with no obligation to house them any longer, any sufficiently opportunistic landlord might pass up on renewing their agreement in order to accommodate visitors to the Olympics, despite the unavailability of alternative accommodation for students. Though these rumors were apparently unfounded, they caused enough stress among students to become a topic of conversation that reached the SRC who noted that students often had difficulty retaining accommodation after exams, even without the Olympics (Hertstan, 1956).

The first students moved into the new building in early 1957. Each student was provided with their own rooms which ‘more than lived up to expectations’ (Turnbull, 2020). One of the first residents in the Ian Clunies Ross Wing, Jeff Turnbull, recalls that the brilliantly furnished, light-filled rooms all had one wall painted a “saturated, bright colour”. His, from memory was vermillion (Turnbull, 2020). All of this served to impart the “contemporary theme” (“International House has first student”, 1956) of the modernist style building, which in turn reflected the changing times within the university, and Australia more broadly, which were happy to accept international students as part of their communities (“International House has first student”, 1956). Reflections from these early residents of the Clunies Ross Wing clearly felt this changing attitude. Gopal Bhattacharyya, in a 1959 Satadal article, is cognisant of the need for international understanding in Australia, and the obstacles in the way of this, but remains confident that the culture at International House gives “students of different countries… the feeling that we belong to the same house, a house of one mankind” (Bhattacharyya, 1959).

Of course, this internationalist ethos was not uniformly adhered to. Students rallied against the formality and western ideals the first Warden attempted to impose, including requiring students to wear academic robes for all dinners and refusing to let students wear their national dress at formal occasions (University of Melbourne Independent Inquiry Committee, 1959). In the face of these challenges, the commitment of students to the ideals enshrined in their home, the Ian Clunies Ross Wing, clearly reflects the attitude of the man after whom it is named. Sir Ian Clunies Ross remained committed to “practical internationalism” (Jones, 1961) and was a spokesperson for the “invaluable contribution” (Clunies Ross, 1961) of migrants to Australia. The multicultural ethos of International House and the Ian Clunies Ross Wing endures today.

References and further reading

Bhattacharyya, G. (1959). Experiences in international living. Satadal: The magazine of International House, University of Melbourne, 1, 29–31.  

Clunies Ross, I. (1961). Australian Citizenship Convention, Canberra, 25 January 1957. Memoirs & Papers: With Some Fragments of Autobiography, Ian Clunies Ross (235-238). Halstead Press.

Coppel, C. A. (2007). Dimmick, Samuel Guy McLaren (Sam) (1922–1984). Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dimmick-samuel-guy-mclaren-sam-12419

Dimmick, S. (1959). International House: The early years 1949-56. Satadal: The magazine of International House, University of Melbourne, 1, 25-27. 

Dimmick, S. (1953, August 27). Letter to Canon R. K. S Adams. University Melbourne Archives, 1961.0030.

Hertstan, E. (1956, July 6). Letter to N. D. Harper. University Melbourne Archives, 1961.0030. 

Hicks, G. (1959). White Australia through Australian eyes. Satadal: The magazine of International House, University of Melbourne, 1, 30–33.

The Immigration Reform Group. (1960). Control or Colour Bar? A Proposal for a change in Australia’s immigration policy. Melbourne University Press.

”International House Appeal.” (1952, 15 July). University of Melbourne Gazette 8(5), 1.

An international house for Australia [brochure]. (c. 1953). International House Archives.

International House Council. (1955). Meeting No. 1, 1955. International House Archives.

International House Council. (1956). Meeting No. 2, 1956. International House Archives.

International House has first student. (1956, 11 October). The Age. Book of newspaper clippings 3, International House Archives.

International House, the University of Melbourne. (2020, 19 August). Alumni stories: Dr Jeffrey Turnbull [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDjEz8keg04

Jones, B. (1961). Sir Ian Clunies Ross and International House. Memoirs & papers: With some fragments of autobiography, Ian Clunies Ross (125-127). Halstead Press.

Larkins, F. (2018). International House Melbourne, 1957-2016: Sixty years of fraternitas. Melbourne University Publishing.

Medley, J. D. G.(1952, 25 July). International House Appeal Committee Circular. International House Archives.

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

Murray, K.A.H. (1957). Report of the Committee on Australian Universities [Murray report]. Government Printer. http://hdl.voced.edu.au/10707/228224

Oakman, D. (2002) ‘Young Asians in our homes’: Colombo plan students and white Australia. Journal of Australian Studies, 26(72), 89-98. 10.1080/14443050209387741.90

Sundarason, R. (1953, June 24). Letter to Malay Mail editor. University Melbourne Archives, 1961.0030.

Tavan, G. (2001) Immigration: Control or colour bar? The immigration reform movement, 1959–1966. Australian Historical Studies, 32(117), 181–200. https://doi.org/10.1080/10314610108596160

University of Melbourne Independent Inquiry Committee. (1959). General Report. International House, University of Melbourne Archives, 1961.0030.