News Archive

The University of Western Australia's campus is often described as one of the world's most beautiful - and an eminent UWA historian has written a book about its landmark buildings.

Emeritus Professor John Melville-Jones, a Latin and Greek scholar, began working on the project to mark the University's 2013 Centenary.

Professor Melville-Jones, who arrived in Australia in 1957 and was impressed by the "good traditional architecture" of UWA's Hackett buildings, often wondered why no one had produced a book to describe and explain the buildings to students, staff and visitors.

"My researches made me realise how lucky UWA had been," Professor Melville-Jones said.  After Sir Winthrop Hackett's death in 1916, his bequest was so generous that "instead of being built in red brick with minimal adornment (like UWA's first permanent building on Park Avenue in 1925) the Hackett buildings could be faced with coastal limestone and Donnybrook sandstone, and richly decorated".

Since retiring last June, 55 years to the day from when he started at UWA, Professor Melville-Jones has researched the buildings on three sides of Whitfeld Court.  They include the 1930s-constructed Winthrop and Hackett Halls, and the administration building which houses the Vice-Chancellery.

In the same "Mediterranean" or "referential" style are UWA's Geology and Geography building, St George's College and a more recent addition, the Administration East building.

Professor Melville-Jones' other publications include works on ancient Greek and Roman coinage, the relationship between Byzantium and Venice in the Middle Ages, and a recent edition of an Italian account of the wreck of a sailing ship off the WA coast in 1875.

One of the first things he did when he arrived at UWA from Cambridge University more than half a century ago was translate "Waltzing Matilda" into Latin.

UWA's centenary celebrations open on the Alumni Weekend from Friday 8 February.  The book The Hackett Memorial Buildings at The University of Western Australia, published by Hesperian Press, is available for $20 at the University's Co-Operative Bookshop and Visitors' Centre, at selected booksellers and online from Hesperian Press.

Media references

Emeritus Professor John Melville-Jones (UWA Discipline of Classics and Ancient History)  (+61 8)  6488 2164
Michael Sinclair-Jones (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8)  6488 3229  /  (+61 4) 00 700 783