| Administrative History | Mr. & Mrs. Dawson were both former Aberdeen University students |
| Description | Interview with Mr Robert Dawson, and Mrs Anne Dawson (nee Adams), recorded on 7 September 1986 by John Hargreaves
Transcript of Interview:
H Mr Dawson, if I could begin with a very general question, why did you choose to come to study Engineering at Aberdeen University?
RD From a very early age I was always interested in things mechanical. I can remember going back to 1915/16 when I won a prize at our local Sunday School, Rathen which is near Fraserburgh, and the minister asked me what I would like for a prize and I said something to do with engines and he said well we can't give you that so he gave me a book of the life of Nelson. From that time onwards I was always interested in things mechanical and electrical and I finished my schooling at Robert Gordon's College because I was no good at anything classical and at that time Fraserburgh Academy it was necessary to take Latin as part of your leaving certificate course. So my father put me into Aberdeen to broaden my ideas and see if I still wanted to go in for engineering. My father was a farmer who at that time had five farms and he was anxious that if possible I should follow on but he didn't force me into farming, so I came to Aberdeen and the first engineering course, I think there were just twelve students in it.
H They were all men?
RD They were all men and there is less than half of that number still surviving.
H You were quite clear that it was a university training in education you wanted, you never thought of an apprenticeship?
RD No. At that time more than present day a degree in engineering ensured you a better job, gave you a wider choice and gave you some practical training.
H The Engineering Department at Aberdeen was quite young.
RD I was one of their guinea pigs.
H You were in the very first class?
RD Yes.
H Did that give you any apprehension?
RD No, not at all.
H Did you get a good education?
RD I reckon I did. It has stood me in good stead since.
H What are your memories of Professor Blackadder?
RD Professor Blackadder was very much oriented towards the civil engineering side and had much less time for mechanical and electrical engineering. Of course mechanical and electrical engineering subjects were all done at Gordon's Technical College at that time. He had no favouritism with civil engineering students as against the other two, mechanical and electrical.
H You took courses with Professor Blackadder?
RD Yes. He took the subject of mechanics and hydraulics.
H Was he an inspiring teacher?
RD No sir. In all truth, no.
H Did you have inspiring teachers?
RD Yes. I think Dr Grassie was, and the man who I served under when I was back at Gordon's lecturing in 1932, or 37, Mr John C Orkney. He was a very good lecturer.
H What about the science courses in Maths and Nat Phil in the university? Were those well taught?
RD They were well taught but they weren't sufficiently oriented towards the engineering subjects. You were in with the Arts class in the ordinary first year mathematics 1 and then the advanced mathematics was in the junior Honours class and we just had to swallow the courses that were dished out to us, it wasn't specially oriented towards engineering.
H So in fact a good deal of your actual engineering work was done at Gordon's where later you taught yourself?
RD Yes. The electrical engineering, the mechanical engineering subjects, they were all done at Gordon's. Engineering drawing initially, the first two years, was at Marischal.
H Who taught that course?
RD Dr Grassie and … my memory fails me. Mostly Dr Grassie. Then in the final year the electrical engineering drawing and design was done at Gordon's.
H When you went back to teach at Gordon's did you have a different view of the university? I gather without knowing the story in detail that the relationship had not always been too happy between the university department and the college?
RD It was happy in these days. There's a lot more friction nowadays, one tends to swallow the other up now and there's a little bit acrimony between the two but they got on very well together in the 1920s, well 1937 I left Gordon's after five years as a junior lecturer.
H There were close relations you'd say between the teachers, as if it was a single institution?
RD Yes.
H You said you felt you got a good grounding in engineering, a good preparation for later on. Looking back do you think you could have got a better one somewhere else?
RD I'm not really in a position to state not having knowledge of the other universities or technical colleges. These days Glasgow Technical College got a very good name, the Royal Technical College. I think when the engineering course started at Aberdeen it was more or less on a tentative basis because they didn't think they would be able to get enough students to maintain a course. Now they're having to restrict the numbers.
H If I could now broaden our questions a little to university life in general and bring Mrs Dawson in. You must have been at the university at the same time?
AD Yes, but I didn't know him then.
H You didn't know one another then?
RD We didn't know one another existed then.
AD It was when he was a lecturer at Gordon's that I knew him.
H By which time you were working at the Torry Research Institute?
AD Yes.
H Was it a big decision for you to come to Aberdeen University?
AD No, I lived in Aberdeen and I had an uncle who had done his Arts and I just wanted to go to Aberdeen. All my friends and I went
H Which school did you go to?
AD The High School.
H Are there any teachers you remember with particular affection, or for that matter with particular distaste?
AD The one I had distaste most for was Prof. MacDonald the Maths professor. I went to his class on the first day and he was writing on the board and he was scribbling away - I hadn't a clue, I gave up and went to the director of studies and asked him what I could take and he said well you have a science subject already, I'd done Zoology, so he put me onto some of the law subjects, because at that time I thought I might go in for law.
RD And since that time she's laid down the law.
H Did you live at home?
AD Yes.
RD I was living with friends. You could hardly call them digs, but the son of the house was taking a medical course and there was another country fellow doing an engineering course two years behind me.
H Could I ask you both one or two practical questions about money? Did you have grants?
AD No, my father paid.
H Did Carnegie pay your fees?
AD No, my father paid everything.
RD I had a Carnegie Grant, £17 I think it was, otherwise my father subsidised me.
H Do you recall how much your allowance was?
AD I hadn't very much pocket money.
RD I think my accommodation and board cost twenty five shillings a week.
H That seems to be a fairly common figure for your period.
RD Digressing a little, I just found the other day that the lodging cost in the Outer Hebrides was £42, I thought that was excessive when you only get a grant of £34. However that's by the way.
H Did you feel you had enough for books and for necessities?
AD Yes.
RD Yes.
H What about social life?
AD I was on the SRC and I was the Secretary of the Women's Union and I was on various committees, the Conservative Association, Hockey Club, Swimming Club and forget what else. I took quite a part in the social life as well.
H Were there many women on the SRC at that time?
AD You tell me!
H We could actually look that one up but in a way I'm asking for sort of an impression about women in the university.
AD There were quite a few, yes. There was one man and … there was three of us for the second year and then the same … Yes, there were quite a lot of women
H You said there were no women on your course, but did you have many lady friends around the study body?
RD No. Our course was such that it was a very intensive course and we never seemed to have any spare time. With these laboratory tests in mechanical and electrical engineering we had big lab reports to write up after summarising stacks of figures. I took no part in the social life of the university except an occasional visit to the Debater but apart from that I think maybe one or two hops at the very outside. We just didn't have time. Even on the Wednesday afternoons when it was supposed to be given up to sport we were down in the drawing office writing up lab reports.
H You had a very full timetable actually in class?
RD Yes. Nine to five every day and we had to get from King's to Marischal and Marischal to Gordon's College.
H When you went to the Debater what were they talking about? Were they talking about politics, religion, the arts?
RD Politics I think.
AD I seconded Cathy Gavin in a women's inter-university debate and it was politics then. She gave me quite a row for evidently overstepping what I should have said as a seconder.
H Were you over-running your time or …?
AD No, not over-running my time but probably being too forceful with my opinions.
H You've just told us what your party allegiances were. What sort of issues - we're talking about the period you graduated , 28 - what had excited you, the general strike ?
AD It was more the election of the university MPs. We had three MPs at that time and John Buchan was one of them. I remember being at a meeting in Chalmers' office in Golden Square and I had graduated by that time and I was the only women there and all these men were there and John Buchan jumped up and got me a seat and took my umbrella.
H The undergraduates didn't vote for the MPs did they, it was the graduates?
AD I'm sure that we voted.
H I think it was the graduates who voted for the MPs, undergraduates voted for the Rector. Do you remember any Rectorial elections, there must have been one?
RD Yes, Lord Birkenhead. I can remember carting him round on his … and a Land Rover outside in Broad Street outside Marischal.
H Tell me about the election because I think they have got a bit duller in recent times, the Rectorial ?
AD They used to kidnap people and on the actual nomination day there was a meeting in the afternoon in one of the lecture rooms and I was with Robert Sutherland's sister, I can't remember her first name, and we were both on the committee and we couldn't see Cathy Gavin and one or two of the other big shots who should have been there to nominate the man. The platform people called for the nominations, nobody stood up for, Birkenhead I think it was, and they said "Was that all?" And I jumped up and said "No there's been no nomination for him" and they turned round and said "But who are you, what right have you to nominate him?" and I said "I happen to be on the committee". Miss Sutherland she stood up and seconded it. "And who are you?" "Yes I'm on the committee too." When we came out of the meeting here was Cathy Gavin and, I forget his name, they'd been having a wonderful time kidnapping somebody else and I said yes you very nearly missed …
H You had a Rectorial fight, did you take part in that?
AD Oh no. I kept well clear of them.
H Neither of you?
RD No.
AD They threw bags of flour and all sorts of things, it was a terrible business.
H Were you interested in elections, were there many issues of national politics? The General Strike would be in your time?
AD The students helped with the General Strike.
RD I was a tram conductor during the General Strike, anything to dodge classes.
AD I kept out of it. We didn't shout about things like they do now for their rights and everything. We just accepted that we had to wait and it was worthwhile doing it.
RD The political things weren't so much cut and dried as they are now. There wasn't the same in-fighting. I didn't take much interest in it so maybe there was more than I saw.
H I think the twenties were perhaps less a time for people to get very excited than the thirties with big issues of foreign policy. Were students, perhaps particularly the Arts students, worried about jobs? Was there a feeling that you would probably still get employment with you graduating before the worst of the slump?
AD I think there was a worry because when I came out I didn't want to teach. I had languages and I wanted a foreign correspondent's job. I got into the Torry Research Station through a friend and stayed there for six and a half years.
H Were many of your contemporaries unemployed for a time on graduation or did most of them find something.
AD A lot of them found jobs as teachers. They went to Training Centre and you were almost guaranteed a job if you went there. ?
RD There didn't seem to me the same fear of unemployment after graduation as there is now.
H Would engineers have been better off than arts students?
RD They were better off in my time but a few years after things were not so rosy because after graduation I served a two year college apprenticeship in Manchester and Sheffield with Metropolitan Vickers and that took me up to 1931 just ahead of the recession. Then I was kept on for two months after that course finished and then for about six months I was looking for a job wherever that could possibly be found either in England or in Scotland, until the head of the electrical engineering department asked me if I would like to join him and his staff. I grasped the opportunity and stayed with him for five years.
H And then later you went to the RAF?
RD I went to the RAF education service and I was commissioned in the volunteer reserve before the war and was embodied at the outbreak of war. I spent the first year of the war in Malta trying to teach the Maltese English and the British system of weights and measures.
H You weren't teaching technical subjects then?
RD Not in Malta, that was general education. Before I was posted out there I had two years at number one school of technical training at Haltor near Aylesbury and that was all technical subjects. Then I was brought home from Malta at the time of Dunkirk and six months after that I was transferred into the technical branch and spent the rest of my time mostly on the researching side of things in the signals branch.
H Have you anything finally you would like to add, any memory or comment on what your times at university meant to you?
RD I would like to go back again.
AD So would I.
H Well, you could enrol for an arts degree, and you for a degree in engineering perhaps.
RD I'm a full-time farmer.
H So you followed your father after all. Thank you both very much indeed.
|