Black and white photograph of a group of male and students gathered around a chess board in the early 1970s.
International House residents in the Scheps building, early 1970s. International House Archives.

Fifty Years of Women at International House

‘Fifty Years of Women at International House’ is a project aimed at preserving and promoting the archival collection at International House (IH), focussing specifically on holdings relating to women. Supported by the Russell and Mab Grimwade Miegunyah Fund at the University of Melbourne, the project is timed to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the decision in 1971 to admit IH’s first female residents.

Aims of the project

The project aims to:

  • Install permanent exhibits at International House to celebrate the work of women in founding and contributing to IH.
  • Expand the International House Collection web presence by creating an online exhibition of the activities of the International House Women’s Auxiliaries.
  • Digitise selected material held in the International House Archives.
  • Produce an item list of records created by the International House Women’s Auxiliaries.
  • Seek out opportunities for publication.

Women and International House

Black and white photograph of a group of people on the pathway leading to the entrance of International House at the University of Melbourne
Mavis Jackson and other visitors arriving at International House for the opening of the Samuel Wadham Wing, 1963. UM 805/295. International House Archives.

The involvement of women at International House goes back much longer than fifty years. Women were active in planning and fundraising for IH from the early 1950s. As Emeritus Professor Frank Larkins points out, the ‘exceptional contributions by women are deeply etched into the foundation of International House’ (Larkins, 2018, p. 13). Hundreds of female volunteers cooked, sewed, organised stalls and wrote letters to raise money and support for IH (Stone, 2017, pp. 35–36). In 1953 the University of Melbourne Council resolved that International House would house female residents ‘when this becomes possible’ (quoted in Harper, 1953); but the first students to arrive in late 1956 and early 1957 were all male.

In 1971, the International House Council agreed to admit female residents, with the first arriving in 1972. The arrival of female residents at IH has been described by historian Dr Nikki Henningham (2020) as ‘a great story about how the presence of women in any institution will have an immediate impact on culture… But also how important having a physical space was for enabling the presence of women from CALD [culturally and linguistically diverse] backgrounds to travel here, get a tertiary education and enrich our lives’. In 1971, the International House Warden Gilbert Vasey imagined this ‘immediate impact on culture’ once women took up residence:

[T]he House won’t be the same again: the Dining Hall full, the Common Room crowded, girlish laughter, less blasphemy (or at the least more polite), different sports, more arts students, more musicians, better speeches in the Club, more articles for [student magazine] Satadal, a woman President sooner or later, women tutors, and, who knows, sometime a woman as Warden.

(Vasey, 1971)

In the years since then, Vasey’s imaginings have come true. In 1973, the International House Council appointed its first female Chair, the microbiologist Mavis Jackson. Subsequent years saw the first female Student Club President (1976), first female Head of College (2004) and the first female former resident to become Chair of the International House Council (2016).

References and further reading

Harper, N. D. (1953, May 6). International House plans. The Age, 2. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article206440370

Henningham, N. (2020). Caitlin, this is a great story about how the presence of women in any
institution will have an immediate impact on culture! [Comment]. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dr-caitlin-stone_when-did-female-residents-arrive-at-ih-activity-6727531349999259648-vT9x

International House Council (1970-1977). Minute book. International House Archives.

International House given large cheque (1953, July 1). The Argus, p. 6. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article23253396

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

Market fair (1953, May 6). Weekly Times, p. 44. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article224032852

700 workers for fair (1953, May 2). The Argus, p. 15. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article23242005

Stone, C. (2017, December). ‘This experiment in international living’: International House Melbourne and its collection. University of Melbourne Collections, 21, pp. 33–37. https://museumsandcollections.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/2803446/07_Stone_International-House-21.pdf

Vasey, G. (1971). Warden’s report. Satadal, 2.