News Archive

Fifty-five years to the day from when he took up a position at UWA, Winthrop Professor John Melville-Jones went off the University payroll. "Some people might refer to this as my retirement, but I prefer to say that I am changing my pecuniary relationship with the University," said the 79-year-old Latin and Greek scholar, who is known to many as the Prince of Punctuation, for his attention to grammar.

Professor Melville-Jones will continue his research in the discipline of Classics and Ancient History as an honorary staff member.

Deputy Head of the School of Humanities, Dr Neil O'Sullivan, told a group of well-wishers at his party in the Vice-Chancellery that Professor Melville-Jones had generously moved to a fractional appointment 16 years ago, to free up funds for Classics to keep going.

"But he took a teaching load far in excess of that fraction," Dr O'Sullivan said.

Professor Melville-Jones said that, arriving from England as a young Cambridge graduate, he very quickly developed a love for his new country and its culture.

"One of the first things I did was to translate Waltzing Matilda into Latin," he said, and proceeded to perform it for his colleagues and friends, teaching them the chorus.

When the crowd had finished singing the iconic Australian song in Latin, Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Johnson presented Professor Melville-Jones with an Honorary Bachelor of Arts in Disambiguation, which amused all those who had had their grammar and syntax corrected by him over the years.

In his farewell speech, Professor Melville-Jones didn't dwell on formal thanks, but turned his attention to the practical elements of his long career on the Crawley campus.

He thanked Human Resources (for paying his salary), the mailroom (for delivering his mail), the security staff ("for ensuring I was not set upon and thumped at my desk") and UniSuper (for funding the next phase of his life).

Published in UWA News , 25 June 2012