| Description | Interview with Margaret Clarke, recorded on 16 July 1985 by Colin McLaren.
Continuation of MS3629/1/27/1
Interview transcript:
McL There were some other points you wanted to make about him.
C I wanted to tell you that one of the happiest weeks in the year for him was the one which he spent in camp with the O.T.C. who joined up with the O.T.C's of other universities, and he used to put on his Army Chaplain's uniform - as Moderator of the United Free Church he'd been a Chaplain during the war - which fitted him perfectly even twenty years after, and off he went with his crony, Colonel Butchart, and they had a splendid time. He very much liked wandering round the lines and chatting to the cadets. One man who had met him there, I remember this phrase he used: 'The Principal walking about in a beam of benevolence.' Once at a camp in Wales he had to leave very early in the morning before the camp was finished, he didn't stay for the whole camp, so he said good night to the officers and the men the night before, but emerging from his tent he saw on either side of the road the whole contingent under the command of Regimental Sergeant Major Eric Linklater, in pyjamas and sporrans, who presented arms as he left and then cheered. This was a story he loved to tell, it both amused and pleased him so much.
McL Was Linklater subsequently a visitor to the house?
C Yes, he was one of them.
McL And J.M. Bulloch too?
C Oh, yes. I really can't remember J.M. Bulloch at all but he certainly came round.
McL It struck me that the two of them followed rather similar patterns in the University, their involvement in various things.
C Yes. Eric, of course, was away from Aberdeen for a long time but I don't think my father altogether approved of all his books. I think he stopped reading them actually. But he was not a great novel-reader, except for Trollope and Dickens and Thackeray and people like that. He made a valiant attempt, when everybody was going mad over The Forsyte Saga, to read Galsworthy but he couldn't.
McL What was his view of education and, more practically speaking, what sort of education did he give his family?
C You don't mean, did he teach us?
McL No. You mentioned boarding schools for, I think, the boys.
C My two oldest brothers were at Glasgow Academy. My third brother started off there and went to Glenalmond: I can't tell you why, really, but he did.
McL What about the girls?
C My eldest sister went to the Mount School at York, a Quaker School.
McL Why did he choose a Quaker school?
C I think he probably did because very great friends of his, the Barbours (connected to Robin Barbour) were Quakers and were tremendous friends and I think some of their daughters had been there. My next two sisters, Kathleen and Janet, both went to Cheltenham Ladies' College where my mother had been in its early days under the famous Miss Beale. And I went to St. Leonard's, but I think I would have been kept at home and not sent to boarding school if I hadn't been very subject to asthma and bronchitis and things and this was supposed to be a bad place for that. I don't see how St. Andrews was much better, but I survived anyhow. Also next I would have been the only one at home because my next sister would have been first at Cheltenham and then at Oxford, and it would have been on the lonely side. There were no other children living in the Chanonry, which was odd.
McL What about in Old Aberdeen? Did you mix and play with children in Old Aberdeen itself?
C The generation before me - not exactly the generation but ones ten or twenty years before me - there were masses of them, or there had been: all these Traills and Piries and Nicols and goodness knows what -and Clarkes - there were a lot around, so that the older members of my family had lots of friends in the Old Town, but I didn't. I didn't because there weren't any. I don't mean I had no friends but they were not on the doorstep. I tell you a Professor that I missed out - I can't think how I missed him out when we were talking about these giants, was Sir J. Arthur Thomson who lived two doors along from us and they were very great friends of ours. They lived in Castleton House, the flat-roofed house. I also feel that in talking about my father as Principal I ought to tell you something about what Colonel Butchart meant to him.
McL Before turning to Colonel Butchart, I think you wanted to raise the subject of the Carnegie Trust.
C My father took the keenest interest in the Carnegie Trust and in 1920 he succeeded Professor Hay as representative of Aberdeen University. The Trust's annual meeting was in London but their executive and business meetings were in Edinburgh, which meant my father getting a 6.10 a.m. train and coming home quite late in the evening and I have been assured by somebody who knows that he never missed a meeting. He took meticulous care in investigating the circumstances of students who applied for grants, writing himself to schoolmasters, ministers and so on, from their homes, and even interviewing a great many of them.
McL How important was this as a source of funds? There were the Bursaries, there was the Carnegie students really did depend upon it?
C I think that they did. He used to talk about these cases he never called them 'cases' - not by name but he would tell us some almost horrifying stories of the sacrifices that the students and their families were making. The result of all his care, and he took this tremendously to heart, was that no recommendation of his was ever turned down. Never. I have been told that by Carnegie Trust people. They just knew. They all went through just because they knew the care which had been taken. Of course he was very friendly with all the other Scottish Principals, and I would think his greatest friends were Principal Macalister of Glasgow a long time ago and his successor Principal Raitt. They were the ones I seemed to hear more about.
McL Did they meet informally, as Principals?
C Yes, they did. I don't know how informal it was but there was a Vice-Chancellors' Committee or something. They used to meet in Perth. Oh, of course he knew Sir James Irvine - the lot, which we meant that we knew them because they all came round too.
McL You mentioned Colonel Butchart who was Secretary and who presumably worked very closely with your father. Did you meet him much as a person outside the University?
C Yes, they were very great friends of ours and we saw a lot of them when they came to live in old Aberdeen. The Secretary when my father was appointed was Mr. Donald Donaldson Rose Thom who, to a child, looked very fierce but was really the kindest of men and I know that my father put great faith in him and found him exceedingly helpful. He was succeeded by Major, later Colonel, H.J. Butchart. It wouldn't be easy to express how much my father relied upon Harry Butchart. His sound judgement and devoted help in every way were really, I think, essential to him. As well as thinking alike on many matters, the two of them shared a sense of humour and I think that their collaboration was not only extremely efficient but probably great fun in fact I know it was.
McL A sense of humour is not the characteristic that has come immediately to mind in some other descriptions of Colonel Butchart, and I wonder whether he again,as with other members of the University you have mentioned, had a shy exterior which masked a much more humane personality.
C I don't whether it was shyness but he could certainly shout and be very abrupt. I don't mean lost control but he could be very abrupt and some people were frightened of him. There was absolutely no need to be frightened of him, at all. He was really a dear man and my father was devoted to him and with very good reason.
McL Was the part that he played in the running of the University in any sense to take the details of routine from your father's shoulders?
C I expect it was, but I didn't really know an awful lot about that. I should think very likely it was, yes.
McL So with your father as Principal and Major, then Colonel, Butchart working with him and the support of the various Professors you have mentioned, how would you describe the University community as a whole, both the staff and the students, the entire community - how would you characterise it?
C From my point of view it was extremely friendly, a happy community and, of course, being a small community it was really rather cosy but cosy doesn't mean static because a tremendous amount of development went on in the way of new Chairs and the Rowett Institute and the this and the that during my father's time. It was a good place.
McL Would it be unjust perhaps to level the phrase 'self-satisfied' or 'self-centred' at it?
C I should have thought, not. Mind you, I was pretty young and not maybe a very good judge. But certainly my father was the least self-satisfied or smug of men, so I should think ...
McL I was thinking more of an ethos within the University.
C I wouldn't have thought so. There was a lot of fresh blood that came in.
McL Despite its remoteness there was a regular supply of new faces and new experiences?
C I would think so. Not in great numbers but enough to keep it lively and from getting stuck-in-the-mud.
McL And was this cosy, but not in a pejorative sense, feeling […]. Could one also sense that in Old Aberdeen itself in the community that lived in the area?
C Yes, I think so. It was a village community which is a feeling that is very much lost now. You know, there were little shops you could do all your housekeeping shopping in the High Street, absolutely all, if you wanted to. And we knew all these people who had the shops and there were all the Professors in all the Chanonry houses but one, or possibly two.
McL And there were also the students, presumably, milling around King's?
C Yes, in their red gowns.
McL What was the character of the student community? You have mentioned bouts of unruliness at Graduation. Was this a fairly regular feature of student life?
C No, I wouldn't say so. Not at all. They just seemed to get a bit 'high'.
McL So there were no problems of discipline in that sense in the ordinary University routine?
C None that I can think of. No, I don't think so.
McL Are there other points you would raise now in connection with your father's Principalship?
C I think his preaching was a very important factor. There used to be regularly very good congregations in the Chapel then, and always an overflow if he was preaching.
McL Were these of students or of people beyond the University?
C Mostly students. One Highland student, or former student from the Highlands, wrote when my father died - he probably wrote to my mother - but he wondered if the Principal could have had any notion how the beauty of his voice and the kindness of his words on every first Sunday of the session banished the wild ache of homesickness from the hearts of country students.
McL Did the themes the Principal touched on in his sermons ever go beyond those purely doctrinal and to do with Christian faith? Did they ever concern themselves with issues social or moral of the word around him? In other words, during the thirties, for example,was he prepared to bring in problems of world affairs into his sermons?
C A bit, yes. He preached less often in the thirties, but..
McL Was this appropriate to the mood of the University? In other words, was there a concern about these issues in the University, were they widely debated?
C I don't know, because I was a giddy young thing and I wasn't debating them, but they must have been. I think they must have been, but I'm afraid I can't say more than that.
McL Matters of the Principal's relationship with the students: You have mentioned already how he would still them with a look from his chair at the Graduation. In what other ways did you observe him dealing with them and what opinion did you form of his relationship with them?
C He was very easy with them. They felt they could talk to him. He was a very out-going person, and he was just interested - interested in young people, interested in them.
McL I suppose there were no equivalents of Advisers or Personal Tutors in those days, so presumably they were prepared to bring problems to him - or did they go to Professors within given subjects first?
C A bit of both, I would say. And then there was the occasional mad student, really mad, who started pursuing him around. I forget what it was all about, but that was a bit of a problem. Wherever Father went he would walk after him, shouting abuse and so on, but I think he was shut up in the end, poor fellow.
McL Are there any points you want to raise about your father? There will be a chance at the end if you want to postpone it until then. Can we then turn to your Tutorship?
C It wasn't a Tutorship, because a tutorship implies something academic.
McL Yes. Perhaps you can tell me first how the job came into being and what it was intended to do.
C I have often wondered! There was a very much beloved and charming and able lady called Mrs Eileen Campbell who had been for a good many years in charge of physical education for women, and she worked under Colonel Brocks whom I am sure you must have heard of. They worked together and the gym: was resuscitated for them. All that was before the days of the Butchart Centre. She became a very great friend of ours. And who had the idea that an Adviser to Women Students would be a good notion, I don't know. Perhaps my mother did. But at any rate, Eileen Campbell left the Gym and her fencing - she was a fencing champion - and was appointed Adviser to Women Students, but very sadly within about a year she became ill and finally died. The job was going, and I was back in Aberdeen long before then - this is nothing to do with my father, it was long afterwards - and I found myself appointed Adviser to Women Students in 1946. It was really personal things that I advised on and, thank goodness, I was specifically told that I was not concerned with the curriculum or problems of that sort, because I am sure I would have lost my way in the University Calendar. On the other hand, I could point girls in the right direction say, somebody wanted to switch from Chemistry to Medicine or from Medicine to Economics or something, I could at least tell them who to go and speak to about it and that sort of thing.
McL Had the post been publicly advertised?
C Yes, it was.
McL What sort of people had applied for it?
C The only one I know of for certain was the wife of a Lecturer in, I think he was in English she was probably much better qualified than me.
McL Had you yourself had a career before then?
C No.
McL You had been at Stowe with your husband, as a housemaster's wife, so it was that experience that you were bringing to the task?
C I suppose so, but they were taking a chance.
McL Can you the first problem you had to deal with, its nature?
C No, I can't. I'll tell you the sort of range of things that I was supposed to deal with, because in 1946 there was no Chaplain to the University, no Careers Appointments set up whatsoever, no Medical Centre, no Halls and therefore no Wardens and Sub-Wardens, and no Regents. You have heard of the Regent Scheme? I don't think it is operating now, but it was revived towards the end of my time. Possibly some students would have felt their professors a bit remote or there were certainly some things they wouldn't have wanted to go and talk to a man about, and they were mostly men on the staff then, so that really I never knew what was going to crop up next.
McL Can you just clarify one point? I have heard, and it has been apparent, that immediately after the War a generation of students came up which was leavened by those who had had military experience of one sort or another, and the impression one forms is of a considerable level of maturity beyond what was normal in the student intake. Was this the case or was this not the case with women students?
C I don't know, because I only started in 1946 and I hadn't seen much of women students in the mass before that, so I can't say but I wouldn't think it had anything like the effect it had had on men - I don't see how it could.
McL So, having established what you lacked in the way of facilities, what sort of problems did this give rise to?
C You mean, what were the students' problems?
McL Yes.
C Well, they were from the sublime to the ridiculous, really. Some were rather serious problems personal, emotional. My office was in the Union, although I had no connection whatsoever with the Union as such. When Mr. Angus became the Secretary he wanted the to move into the Administrative Offices in Marischal, but I successfully resisted this. He kept on about it, but I managed to get the Principal on my side because I felt that students were far more likely to come to a little inconspicuous room in the Union - they would be using the Union anyhow, you see there was much less out here then (the Union was the building opposite Marischal) - than having to run the gauntlet of officials over in Marischal: the whole thing would have been different. So I was able to stick where I was providing
McL Was it a matter of providing 'coffee and counsel' or were you actually picking up the phone and making arrangements on their behalf? Was it a practical post?
C Both. I wasn't supposed to be responsible for finding them digs - you see there was no Lodgings Officer, that was another thing, they had to find their own accommodation - but I tried to keep an under-the-counter list of people that I could ring in an emergency if somebody came along and said they had nowhere to go. I have taken them home myself before now.
McL Were you yourself an instigator in having these defects remedied as a result of the experiences you had in solving these problems? Were you someone who fought for Halls and medical facilities and so on?
C Yes.
McL In what ways did you go about it?
C I think the first of these people to be appointed was the Chaplain, the one before Alan Robertson, I'm afraid I forget his name. I used to work quite a lot with him, and we sometimes went and talked to the Principal and said 'Wouldn't it be a good idea if we had this and that'. I'm not saying we had the slightest effect, but certainly it was .... And then people have often asked me: 'As the University grew, how on earth did you cope?' The whole point was that,with all these sources of advice and information around, as the numbers grew my responsibilities diminished, so that really the work-load didn't increase very much at all, because I could say ... First of all, anyone in a Hall of Residence if they had a sympathetic sub-warden at all, or Warden, would go to them. And then there were the Regents and there were Advisers of Studies, there were ...
McL Still mainly masculine then, presumably?
C Mainly. Lots of women sub-wardens, though, and Regents. Perhaps not so many Regents, but some. And so I just soldiered on. I don't know if you want to have this in or not, but I once made a frivolous remark, absolutely off the cuff, to Eric Linklater about tripping over carry-cots in the Union Hall, and was somewhat horrified to find myself quoted quite seriously in his autobiography, Fanfare for a Tin Hat. Furthermore, he called me something awful like 'Lady Supervisor' or something: terrible, terrible! I thought, now I mustn't say things like that. That sort of thing became more and more, if you see what I mean, but I was no longer the first and only person to go to about it. Also another of my jobs was to visit students in hospital.
McL How much support did you get from the staff in what you did?
C It varied tremendously.
McL In what ways?
C Some were extremely interested and helpful, and gave me any information I wanted, and kept an eye on somebody if I thought it would be a good idea to do so, and altogether helpful and others, just not all that interested. When the Regent Scheme was revived, it was entirely voluntary and we used to have regular Welfare Meetings after that, of all these people I was very much surprised by the number of people who, although they had volunteered to do the job, simply did nothing about it, in that the idea they would be apportioned each year say, six, seven, eight students, and entertain them as soon as possible. The number who maybe did send out one note but never followed it up at all whether it was replied to or not, just washed their hands of it - it was quite extraordinary. I used to wonder, 'Why are you a Regent?' But I don't want to stress that.
McL Amongst those who supported you and those who opposed you, would it be possible to characterise the two groups by age and rank in other words, was a young Assistant or young Lecturer more likely to support this new form of counselling rather than a member of the professoriate and an older member?
C Not necessarily. Rex Knight was a great help to me he was also a great personal friend. You can imagine, he was tremendously interested in students.
McL Are there others whom you can mention?
C Professor Tait was very good. And when Professor Mackinnon was Dean of the Faculty of Arts (I don't know whether this should go on the record) he took infinite trouble over students, to the extent that I used really to hesitate about getting in touch with him, because he just wouldn't let go. It was like putting a very powerful engine into motion and being unable to stop it. And two years after I had said, 'This girl is simply hopeless, she is not going to her tutorials, or doing her work, what do you think?' I would be walking down the High Street, he would be on the other side and he would cross over and say, 'About Miss So and So' and I would think, 'Who on earth is Miss So and So?', because it was so long before. He used to write me very long letters too. He took infinite trouble he is a very, very kind man. He is definitely to be put among the helpful ones: almost over helpful.
McL I wonder if I could ask you really to be a little more precise, I suppose, about the nature of the cases that you dealt with? Perhaps I can ask you this: if, as from the examples you have mentioned, there were matters of people not attending classes or being dilatory in this way, were you also dealing with such matters as unplanned pregnancies?
C Yes. How?
McL Would you say over the period that you held the post that these sort of things had changed in number and in range, these sorts of problems?
C I had none at all of those in my first few years - none. And I can't tell you how much they increased because you see they had the medical people to go to after a bit.
McL And they would normally have taken the problem directly there?
C I think they probably would. And I might never have heard of the problem at all, there was no reason why I should. The medical people might conceivably come back to me: "What do we do with this one and that one and so on" They did. I worked very closely, for instance, with Alan Robertson - not that he was concerned with that side of things particularly. People were helpful and there was a good deal of that. I remember one girl who was quite sure that she would be sent down, and reassuring her that she would not, saying 'If you are going to be sent down, you are young and I had better be sent down too?" I did a good deal of reassuring. It all depended on their attitude or what they were planning to do and how they saw their future.
McL Did you deal with their families?
C Not much.
McL Did families ever get in touch with you?
C Yes. Of course, in that case I was prompted. And then there were money difficulties that they got into. There was one confirmed gambler whom I had to take somewhere to collect some money that she was getting - I was told to do this by Mr. Angus - and then take her somewhere to pay over the money, and take her to court and goodness knows what. I remember my son's comment was 'I didn't realise you had to act as tipstaff!'
McL To whom were you responsible?
C To the Principal only. And Edward Wright was the one who always insisted on this. He said 'Take no notice of anybody else. You are responsible to me.' It never crossed my mind to wonder who I was responsible to before. Colonel Butchart used to get in touch with me about this and that. I remember that for some reason we made an expedition together to the medical students' hostel up at Foresterhill there was some difficulty there, I forget what.
McL The impression I have is that Mr. Angus was in some ways trying to control or have some say over what you did or at least how you did it.
C He would have liked to, yes. Why, I don't know because he had plenty to do without that. We got on all right. But Edward Wright was very strong on this. He said, 'You are responsible to me. Don't listen to anyone who says you are not.' So I made my reports to him.
McL Can we now deal with the Principals because, since you did report to them, obviously you must have seen them in a particularly unique light? How would you characterise each of them in their approach?
C Oh, that is so difficult: How much do you really want?
McL As much as you can furnish, I think, because you would be seeing them in a way that is probably different from the way those whom we have already spoken to saw them, either as superiors within a department or as rather remote figures. I imagine you would have gone beyond that barrier of remoteness and would have had to discuss fairly personal matters very closely with them. Was Sir Thomas Taylor amenable to this?
C Yes, very.
McL And Hamilton Fyfe?
C I was devoted to him. They were personal friends of ours. He was a dear man but he was awfully apt to give the impression that he agreed with the last person he was talking to and they would go off quite satisfied that he was on their side and then .... You know, there are people like that. Of course, he was Principal when I was appointed.
McL Did they make you feel part of the University community?
C Yes.
McL Did you sit on any committees ex officio at all?
C I was on this committee which became quite big once all these other services were set up. The University put me on an outside thing. Before the latest reorganisation of the Health Service they put me on the Board of Foresterhill and Associated Hospitals, which I did for many years and which took up quite a lot of time.
McL So your dealings with the Principals were on a one-to-one basis then, when you reported to them?
C Yes. I didn't bother them much. I wasn't always rushing over to Marischal by any manner of means.
McL But when you did, Hamilton Fyfe would have agreed with you but perhaps not done much more. What about Sir Thomas Taylor?
C If he said a thing, he meant to do it.
McL Was he interested in what you did?
C Yes. I remember particularly a very sad case of a girl who committed suicide, having shown signs of being unbalanced before. She was in hospital and flung herself out of a window. I think that's what she did, there were two suicides while I was there. Alan Robertson and I were very much concerned we felt that somebody should have been looking after her a bit better than that. I don't mean hospital staff, but somebody. He came to see me and I said, 'Why don't we ring up the Principal and see if he is free and go over and talk to him?' which we did, and he was awfully good, he was really very, very good.
McL What did he do?
C There wasn*t much to be done in a way, but I think he spoke to - it was a professor concerned actually who must have known that she was in a bad way, he simply must have known but he never thought fit to do anything about it, and a medical professor apparently.
McL So, in fact, apart from yourself there was no one really, was there, other than a member of staff who might take an interest in a student, who could spot any decline in a student's emotional state they could live in comparative obscurity within the University with no one watching for it?
C Oh, yes. And I'm sure there were lots of girls who didn't come to me. I'm sure at that age, or even at any age, I'm not really one to trot round asking people for their advice on this, that and the next thing, unless it's something completely practical. There are lots of people who wouldn't want to come and discuss their personal affairs, even if they were in a muddle.
McL Financial problems,where they could be given practical guidance, I suppose might be an area where they would be more likely to come?
C Yes.
McL Did students have difficulties making ends meet? You have mentioned already the importance of Carnegie.
C Not really. They didn't need to, in my opinion. If they did have difficulty it was more likely to be their own fault.
McL From your post there gradually emerged other areas of concern which were taken care of by the various authorities who were appointed.
C Yes who were, of course, dealing with men and women. I was often asked, 'You are Adviser to Women.Why is there no Adviser to Men?' I had no reply to that. The Chaplain, when appointed, did a lot of pastoral work.
McL Would you say the character of women students changed between, say, 1946 and 1966? If so, in what ways?
C I think that they, on the whole, became much more self-confident and possibly self-reliant. Also more likely to get themselves into more serious jams. That's my impression, but it was only a minority I saw - a small minority. I saw them around and said hello and chatted, but actually coming to see me about things
McL Did more live away from home by the 'sixties than lived away from home in 1946?
C Yes.
McL This was another trend?
C Yes.
McL And of course the mention of the 'sixties brings us into the era of expansion, the Robbins expansion and our own University's response to it, which was then spread over a longish period with the building of Halls of Residence and so on and so forth. How would you assess the University's response to the problems of expansion?
C I don't know what to say, really.
McL What other changes have you seen in the University student community?
C I think that the average student now is much more self-sufficient and self-assured, and possibly takes much less interest in, as you might say, the traditions and the history and so on of the University and in the general surroundings of Aberdeen and the countryside and everything than they used to do. I can give you two examples, because I very often have a postgraduate student lodging with me. I was very struck by one girl who had been working for a Ph.D. or whatever it might be, as a postgraduate in the Chemistry Department for two and a half years when she came to me she had never heard of Kings College Chapel and neither did she know where it was! The Chemistry Department! And she wasn't a dumb girl. And the one who has just left me now has spent seven years in Aberdeen, hardly knows her way about, a very intelligent girl, First Class Honours in whatever it was and in her third year of her Ph.D. She told me a long and involved story one day about going with some friends and how she got lost, "just near Inverurie and Ballater" so I said, '"Well, make up your mind. Was it Inverurie or was it Ballater?" She also once, I just happened to mention that I was very fond of Donside and she said, "Where's Donside?" I said, "Well, in fact this is Donside but I am thinking of further up." "What towns are on Donside?" She had never heard of Bennachie. It struck me that those were two highly-educated young women, not interested interested in their work and their friends, both hard workers but by no means studious types who never did anything else, busy social lives.
McL Had they perhaps more of an interest in social and political matters than students you recall of an earlier generation?
C Yes, I think so.
McL Is this another change you would see on the whole?
C Yes, but it seems to me a pity that students should go away from three, four or seven years and really be so clueless about what Aberdeen is all about, and the University. Half of them don't know - I shouldn't say half - but I have come across several who have been around here without knowing who the Principal is.
McL We spoke earlier about those who had supported your work as Adviser to Women Students, and something I should have asked you then and didn't was of people not so much on the University staff but with University associations - one thinks of people like Dr. Mary Esslemont, for example - were there many of those associated with the University who also supported what you were trying to do?
C She certainly did. I don't think they necessarily supported what I was trying to do.
McL But they took a strong interest in student welfare?
C Yes, absolutely.
McL Can we deal at a little more length with two of the Principals under whom you served: the first, Sir Thomas Taylor. How, again, would you assess his role as a Principal?
C I should say he was absolutely cut out to be a Principal. To start with a less important thing, he had a tremendous presence and great dignity, and he had the University's welfare so much at heart. I don't know..
Second interview with Mrs. Margaret Clarke on Tuesday, 16 July 1985 in Brig House, conducted by Colin McLaren.
McL We were talking of the Principals and we had spoken of Sir Thomas Taylor. What sort of assessment would you make of Sir Edward Wright's Principalship?
C I think Sir Edward Wright was eminently successful with students. And at a time when there was a great deal of student unrest not only in this country but everywhere you can think of, we were remarkably free of trouble I don't quite know what the secret was but he dealt with them in a way that kept things calm and was also acceptable to them.
McL You feel that this was his personal intervention that achieved this?
C Yes, I do. He liked his own way - don't we all? - and occasionally if somebody disagreed in a meeting or took the opposite view, he really could become quite excited, and shout and so on. I believe he had a reputation for this before he became Principal, and that he was more controlled after he became Principal but all the same he was known to fly off the handle.
McL. It has been suggested that possibly he might have done more for the University in the corridors of power in London by spending more time there, that he didn't perhaps travel as much as he might have done, as others have done. Is this a view you have formed?
C. That is what I have been told by people in other universities, who said 'We never see Edward Wright in London.' He was rather a one for arranging to go to places, and then at the last minute whether it might be abroad to Gdansk or wherever else, because some of our Principals have been quite travelled you could almost bet that it all would all be cancelled at the last moment. He just whether he didn't care for travel, or what it was, but I do know that it was considered by other Vice Chancellors a very great pity that he didn't show up at their meetings really a great pity.
McL. Did your position at the University survive under Sir Fraser Noble?
C. No.
McL. Had you known him earlier when he was on the staff?
C. Yes. Not well, but I knew him. I was delighted when he was said to be coming back.
McL. You have mentioned Colonel Butchart and the support he gave your father in the Principalship and you have mentioned W.S. Angus in passing, but how would you assess his role and his influence as the University's Secretary in the later period?
C. Mr. Angus? I think he probably did a very good job. He could be quite intimidating but I think he worked extremely hard, and when I had to go to him or speak to him or when he was in some way brought into some situation that I was concerned with, he showed great compassion for students more than I did he really did.
McL. You mentioned Professor Rex Knight, and possibly his wife, as having an interest in what you were doing and in the students.
C. Not as far as I knew. She was rather withdrawn. I knew them both well.
McL. But it was really Rex Knight ?
C. Oh, yes.
McL. Were there others whose interest was not just with students, who struck you as standing out in the University community, either from their role in University affairs or from their contribution to the moral and intellectual and cultural life of the University?
C. Professor Black History would be one, I think.
McL. His contribution being..?
C. Rather, I think, in being very understanding about students and certainly he and his wife being very hospitable to them. And I must mention Professor and Mrs. Steven (he was Forestry). I saw a great deal of them, they lived in Old Aberdeen for a long time, and they just had a constant stream of students through their house and they had lots of overseas students because this and Oxford were the only Forestry Departments,as far as I know, in the country, and so lots of them came here. They were always being besieged by invitations from graduates to go to Cyprus and Kenya and Nigeria and Ceylon and everywhere you care to mention, and they made a great mark as far as students go. I am saying 'they' all the time because they were very much partners in this.
McL. I notice you mentioned that they lived in Old Aberdeen and that you had known them well in that connection, and I wonder if there was in any sense a division of communities between those who lived in Old Aberdeen ( and I am thinking now of the ' forties and 'fifties wren you were on the staff) and those who lived either in the West End or elsewhere in Aberdeen. Is there a sense in which the Old Aberdeen community was perhaps more tightly knit than (and, not exclusive, but in some ways different from) those who lived in the West End and beyond?
C. I suppose so, because inevitably you saw more of them but I was absolutely amazed once when somebody living in the West End made a fearfully snooty remark well, it wasn't exactly snooty 'Oh, Old Aberdeen you're all so wonderful in Old Aberdeen.' I never thought of it as being so marvellously exclusive, never for one minute, and it was quite a shock to me. I don't know whether you have come across this talking to anybody else that they thought we were exclusive. I don't think we were in the very slightest degree exclusive.
McL. I haven't encountered it but I think, because a number the of the people I have spoken to were of a generation when the majority did live in Old Aberdeen, and perhaps moved to the West End perhaps only when they needed larger houses because they had growing families but they had already by then established connections in Old Aberdeen.
C. Yes, and so they really felt quite Old Aberdonians.
McL. Can we turn, finally, to the University's interaction with the North Eastern community, both what you can recall of it from your father's Principalship and your experiences in the more recent time? First of all, in the earlier period, what was the relationship between Town and Gown?
C. I think a very friendly one indeed. And I know that myfather made a point of immediately getting to know the new Lord Provost whoever he might be, who of course was ex officio n a member of the Court. The Lord and Lady Provost were always people who came to Chanonry Lodge soon after he was elected.
McL. Did they as a rule take an interest in University matters?
C. Some did. I think there was very high mutual regard, really, perhaps illustrated by the fact that my father was presented with the Freedom of the City in, I think, 1931 but it might have been the late 'twenties, round about then. He was also and this is another link, you know the Seven Incorporated Trades? They have what is called a Patron who is their Chaplain really my father was Patron of the Seven Incorporated Trades for years and years. I'm not sure when he was appointed, but as far as I can remember and right up till the time when he retired. In fact, when he did retire and moved to Edinburgh, they didn't want to let him go he said he really couldn't come to any more of their things but I think they hung on to him for another two years before they appointed another Patron. He could get on with all sorts of people, that was the thing.
McL. Did other Principals in the same way mix in the Town's affairs to this extent?
C. Tom Taylor might have. I couldn't say well, Fraser Noble doesn't come into my bit, he was such a friendly soul that I expect he did. Here's another thing that perhaps I shouldn't say but I think you wanted to know. The Wrights, both of them everybody liked them, but they never seemed to be a part of the place, and soon after Edward Wright became Principal with his office in Marischal there used to be a service which I think has now been abolished, called The Kirking of the Council, at St. Nicholas Church. His secretary coached him about this and he said "Where is St. Nicholas?" He had been here since the 1930's. Astounding. The moral is not to appoint an Englishman!
McL. What of Town and Gown relationships in the later period when you were Adviser to Women Students? Did you notice a change in them by then?
C. No, I couldn't say so. I remember Edward would sometimes bring Councillor McGee or whoever was on the Court, or the Provost or someone, in to lunch - God help them - in Marischal, and they seemed to be very matey. I don't think there have ever been any difficulties between them not that I am aware of but there might be things I just don't know about I'm not privy to what goes on in the Court.
McL. I wondered, with the building of the Halls of Residence and as a result,presumably, less of a role for landladies' taking students in the town, if this had had any effect or had shown up in relationships between the University and the Town?
C. I think the landladies and people always talked of 'they stewdints' and perhaps they do a little bit more now, but I think there are far fewer students living in the old-fashioned digs, because if they are not in halls of residence they like to be in flats.
End of interview
|