Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 385
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[Page 385]
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elaborately carved stone arch over the roadway between the two.
A new School of Physics, an exceptionally long narrow structure was soon to be started, and the old School to be extensively remodelled to accommodate the Electrical Engineering School, and thus leave more room in the P.N. Russell building for the Civil, Mechanical and Mining Departments. Better catering facilities for staff and undergrads was being provided by the addition of a big refectory, in modern limewashed Italian style, to the old red-brick Union. It was also intended to complete the cloisters around the north and east sides of the main guadrangle - along the fronts of the new buildings - but before this could be done a sudden halt was called to the whole building programme, early in 1925, owing to a lack of funds and any further financial assistance from the Government.
One afternoon a week was free of laboratory or practical work to permit participation in sporting activity by those so inclined, but in our faculty most of our sports-training had to be done after 5 p.m. The Engineering course was a very grinding full-time one, with many laboratory readings to be taken away and worked out at night, often into the small hours, ready to be submitted for checking and marking the next morning.
On Saturday mornings we had to attend practical trade classes at the Sydney Technical School in Ultimo, there being no suitable facilities or instructors at the University. We did four separate courses: blacksmithing, fitting, machining and pattern making, and by the end of the year became competent enough in using the various tools and machines, some more so than others who were not so handy.
During Commemoration (of benefactors) Week at the end of Lent Term, and just before the Easter break, the students held their annual procession through the streets of the city after assembling it in the Domain. The one in 1923, in which I actively participated, was one of the last that the Police Department allowed to pass through the city centre because of the great disruption of the greatly increasing motor traffic, and there had been some public complaints about lewdness in some