The Mayne Inheritance (16 page)

In March 1923, J.D. Story, a Government appointee to the University Senate, suggested that a State which depended on primary industry should offer higher education in that discipline, and the Senate resolved to create a Faculty of Agriculture. It was to operate from 1926. The idea interested James Mayne. His long-running debates with Sandford Jackson about the best site for a university had never abated, but both men were well aware that there was never sufficient money and that good proposals had foundered for lack of it. James' horizon was wider than Jackson's. His vision was for Australia; and it was not centred solely on the needs of the medical profession from which he had withdrawn almost twenty years earlier. He believed that Story's idea should not fail for lack of money or be quietly dropped between then and the proposed operative date of 1926.

The Maynes owned 693 acres of farmland at the junction of Moggill Creek and the Brisbane River. Ever generous where he saw a positive community need, James offered it to the young University to facilitate the
founding of the proposed Faculty of Agriculture. The University Senate expressed delight and accepted the gift but was not sure what to do with it. Patrick Mayne had grazed cattle there and the family's lessees still farmed it, but now, under University ownership, trees were cleared and the soil declared unsuitable for agricultural development and grazing. What the Maynes thought of this is unrecorded; they were probably never told. Time quietly erased public knowledge of their gift. The property was again leased out to farmers, and in 1935, during the Depression, it was made available to the State Department of Agriculture and Stock, which moved its Farm School from the St Lucia district to the University's Moggill land. It was some thirty years before the Maynes' gift of that land was put to use by the University in the way its donors had intended. By then, James and Mary Emelia were long dead, but during their lifetimes they continued to have faith in the usefulness of their donation to help education and the nation's primary industry. That was demonstrated in 1940 when it became known that as part of their final munificent bequest, they had willed ‘‘Moorlands'' to the University. It had once been their hope that it could be used as the administrative heart of the Faculty of Agriculture.

1922 and 1923 were years of big financial decisions. Having donated handsomely to St Stephen's Cathedral, St Martin's Hospital, and the young University of
Queensland, James decided to restructure some of the family investments. He would demolish their central city buildings—back-to-back, they stretched from Queen to Adelaide Streets—and erect in their place a three-storied traditional European shopping arcade. As far-seeing a business man as his father, he employed Richard Gailey Jnr, the son of his former architect to design the Brisbane Arcade, which would house a large number of small specialty shops, a restaurant and a top floor of offices, all returning rents on his £70,000 investment. When the Arcade opened at the end of 1923 its Edwardian baroque-style facades and lofty clerestory lighting were much admired. It became a most popular shopping venue. Few, if any of the ladies trying on the latest fashions or lunching with friends in the restaurant realised that on that site sixty years earlier, Mary Mayne had borne her youngest children, the dying Patrick had confessed to a murder, and his resourceful widow had plied the butchery trade to preserve the inheritance which finally financed this modern arcade.

As the decade slipped by James was occasionally reminded that sixty years of family stress had taken their toll. He began facing the one great certainty of life. Of his two older sisters, Rosanna, now in her mid-seventies, existed in a turbulent mental state. She required constant restraint and imposed heavy demands on the concerned Sisters of Mercy. Mary Emelia, in her mid-sixties, was not endowed with the ability to handle business affairs, nor motivated to try. It is likely that her genetic inheritance
was a lower than average intelligence and that time or medication had left her dull and listless. Both sisters could outlive him. Neither was capable of dealing with their wealth. Despite their recent largess, he and Mary Emelia were still the possessors of an ever-growing fortune. For a man as responsible as James, its ultimate disposition was a matter of great concern.

12

By 1922, the University at George Street was so short of space it was bursting at its dilapidated seams. Some buildings had not been painted since 1910, and white-ant infestation rendered others decidedly hazardous. In September, Parliament had confirmed that 170 acres at Victoria Park, close to the Brisbane Hospital, had now been vested in the University. But the joy of the proponents of that site was shortlived. Their dreams of noble buildings were grievously dashed with the 1925 announcement of the cost of levelling the site before any building could begin. It was estimated at a then astronomical £89,000, which soon soared to £130,000. It was clear to many—
and the press was adamant—that to proceed at Victoria Park would be a costly mistake. The disappointment, and the urgent need to move the University from George Street put heat and vigour into the reopened debate about where the University should be built. The other two optional sites came back into contention: 122 acres at Yeronga or 274 acres at St Lucia.

In October of that year, when the debate was at its height, the geologist Fred Whitehouse returned from Cambridge with a Ph.D., joined the staff at the University, and, in his continued friendship with James, resumed long riverside walks. It is most likely that the clamour of the debate had set James mulling over ideas for a new bequest. Forty-four years later, when Dr Whitehouse was protesting to the University about lack of recognition for James Mayne, he said that in their discussions James was firmly against Victoria Park because it was not possible to row there. Whitehouse wrote: ‘‘He and I discussed what river sites were available. He was greatly taken with the nearest of those, the river pocket at St Lucia.''

It is tempting to see the persuasive hand of Fred in the next moves that influenced James. They were close friends and Fred was also deeply interested in the future of his University. He was a very able organiser and an active writer who knew the power of the printed word. On 7 January 1926, the
Daily Mail
devoted a leading article to the needs of the young, makeshift University at George Street. The urgency was not just for the Government to provide adequate buildings, but for endowments by
wealthy citizens to facilitate the establishment of additional faculties.

Fred would have known much of James' thinking; most likely he decided it was time to give a push to those ideas by urging Eric Tommerup, the editor of the student magazine
Galmahra
to publish what they hoped would prove a catalyst. The May issue of
Galmahra,
to which Fred was a contributor and which he was to edit the following year, aptly headed an item ‘‘A Futurist Ramble''. Referring to the
Daily Mail
article, it read: ‘‘Those lines might appeal to some aged and unmarried plutocrat who is anxious to dispose of his worldly goods in preparation for a life where finance makes less stringent demands ... The University needs a permanent home ... the need is great. It matters not whether the funds are made available from public or private sources but without them, the University cannot play its proper part in the development of Queensland.''

This was followed in July by the news that the University Senate had formally created a Chair of Agriculture and that the Faculty was under consideration. It was more than three years since the Maynes had gifted their Moggill land; although nothing much was being done with it, at last the Maynes could enjoy the satisfying thought that their gift was a factor in the Senate decision.

The long walks to rural St Lucia were a time for contemplation. James' memories of undergraduate days at the University of Sydney were of lack of space and no quiet river banks where students could stroll while arguing the problems that exercised their minds, as they did at the
British universities, which he had visited. In this pastoral riverside setting, depressing family thoughts and the hurt caused by the carrion feeders of gossip could be laid aside. He could unwind in the peace of the quiet, benign farming area as he strolled with his friend. In a sense it became his refuge from an unsatisfying life. He had always had the ability and drive to be an achiever, but at sixty-four he felt no sense of personal enrichment. All he had was money. He knew that his once promising life was useless, as empty as the vast expanse of clear light that arched above them from Highgate Hill to distant Mt Coot-tha.

In James' mind, St Lucia became
his
place. He could afford to direct its future—give Brisbane its university site. A glance into the distance showed the gently rising slope of the peninsula cradled in the long, curving reaches of the river. It promised the ideal site: acres of flat land for sport and recreation, the river for rowing and swimming, and cleared high land where buildings could rise. With still vivid mental pictures of the 1893 raging floods and the family's relief as their brand-new home stood safe on the rise, he could be confident that this was a unique site where the University could economically maximise the use of all the land and erect buildings above any future threat of flood.

With or without the journalistic efforts of Fred Whitehouse, it was only a few weeks after the
Galmahra
publication that James arrived at his decision. With Mary Emelia's agreement and his agent's assistance, he ascertained the available area at St Lucia and its market price. Then,
bowler-hatted and with a bright flower in his buttonhole, he called at the City Hall and asked to see the Mayor, William Jolly.

The two had never met. When James began to talk about St Lucia and the urgency of a permanent university site, Jolly cautiously remarked, ‘‘But that will cost a lot of money''.

To his astonishment, James answered, ‘‘Even if it costs £100,000 my sister and I wish to make the gift.'' That discussion, in early September 1926, was private. Jolly was invited to ‘‘Moorlands'' for further discussions. It was assumed that the cost of resuming the land would be some £50,000. The question arose: ‘‘What if the University declines your offer?'' There was no vacillation in James' intention to benefit the community. ‘‘The people of Brisbane could have it as a public park,'' he replied.

By 16 October, to Jolly's dismay, the University Senate released to the press his private advice to them that an anonymous donor had offered to purchase the St Lucia land so that Queensland could have a permanent home for its University. Two weeks later, with nothing decided, the name of Mayne was divulged. James and Mary Emelia featured in a welter of positive publicity; but if they imagined that a grateful University Senate would say ‘‘thank you'' and welcome this second magnificent gift, they were to be disappointed.

One group, powerful in the academic and medical world and unable to visualise a viable university more than a stone's throw from its teaching hospital, threw up several
spurious arguments as to why St Lucia was unsuitable. It was too far out in the bush. Students would not travel the distance. The river mists were unhealthy; students could die of asthma or pneumonia.

The Lord Mayor, having now formed a genuine friendship with James, mounted a pro-St Lucia argument, saying, ‘‘This is a site unequalled for a university in any city in Australia or in the world.'' The Student's Union, fed up with deplorable conditions and the selfishness of the medical group, and casting a hungry eye on the space for sporting facilities, backed the Mayor's opinion. In what must have been music to James' ears, the Union President, Colin Nash, pointed out that via West End, St Lucia was only 1 1/4 miles from Victoria Bridge and far more suitable than Victoria Park, with its noisy rail traffic. Nash asked whether it was a good policy to seriously endanger the ultimate development of all other faculties by granting an advantage to the Faculty of Medicine.

In mid-December James was invited to meet the Senate to present his views. The result? Subject to a variety of conditions and by the narrowest margin of one vote, it was agreed to accept the land. The ultimate cost was £80,000, well up on the original estimate of £50,000, but as Alderman Jolly recalled, ‘‘That was all right, Dr Mayne paid the balance as if he had been expecting to do so''.

A very pleased Fred Whitehouse, now editor of
Galmahra,
wrote glowingly of the site and praised ‘‘the wise move and the generosity of Dr Mayne, one of the University's best friends''. The
Queenslander
managed to get a short
interview with Mary Emelia in which she hoped that the health-giving breezes of St Lucia would benefit the students. ‘‘Cooking,'' she said, ‘‘is the most important of all branches of knowledge for a woman''—she would like to see it as a subject for a university career. No photograph was taken; without comment, the article was illustrated with one taken when she was nineteen and quite good-looking.

The publicity died away. Everything remained very tenuous. Negotiations, sometimes quite acrimonious, between the Brisbane City Council and the University Senate dragged on. Over the next few years the Senate minutes are studded with the on-and-off arguments about the St Lucia site. The City Council declined to hand over the Mayne gift until the Senate gave a firm declaration that the new University would be built there and the 170 acres at Victoria Park handed back to the Council. This assurance was not given until 1930. On 16 May 1930, the press recorded the public handing-over with James and the Mayor shaking hands. It is an indication of the indecision that continued to reign that four years later, the
Courier Mail
(23 July 1934) noted that the University was twenty-five years old and said: ‘‘If the government should decide upon St Lucia as a future site...''

It is to be wondered if (then as now) the University in fact wanted the valuable gift, but would have preferred the donors to have been other than the Maynes. Doubtless James hoped that as the University grew and became a principal institution within the State, the endowment
would restore some long-term merit to his family name. Unfortunately, the University Senate was (and continued to be) singularly insensitive in the matter of honouring the Maynes. Malcolm Thomis, in
A Place of Light & Learning
wrote: ‘‘It was a pity that Dr Mayne's magnificent generosity, a munificence universally applauded, should have been followed by this wrangle. It was a pity, too, that this man should have been required to wait almost four years before the gift was finally received. The whole process must have been less than encouraging to other prospective donors in the community.''

It was more than four years before the gift site saw any building. Plans were drawn and redrawn and the arguments rolled on. Eleven years after the gift offer was made to Alderman Jolly, the foundation stone was laid on 6 March 1937. Sadly, for the Maynes, the 693 acres of Moggill land, which they had given in 1923 to facilitate the Faculty of Agriculture, was also still awaiting use by the University. It says something for the commitment of James that he and his sister did not waver from their intention of benefiting the community by assisting the University. This also says something about the quality of James' friendship. Dr Sandford Jackson, who was President of the Queensland branch of the British Medical Association, was one of the fiercest opponents of the St Lucia site during the long years of the great debate, yet he and James remained life-long friends.