Key 69: Engineering [ii] 1945-1983

 

A moderately successful fund-raising campaign in the late 1930s resulted in some additions to the Engineering workshops and buildings, but the precinct remained a little run down and subject to encroachment. Nevertheless new workshops were occupied in 1940 (and were inundated with war work) and further extensions were opened in 1946.

The immediate post-war period proved to be one of regeneration. The chair of Engineering was partitioned into three in 1946: Civil Engineering (J.Louis Matheson): Mechanical Engineering (Robert R. Blackwood): Electrical Engineering (Charles E. Moorhouse 1948).

Mechanical Engineering Laboratory
Mechanical Engineering Laboratory
[Source: N. Olver and G. Blainey, The University of Melbourne, MUP, 1956, p. 116]

Other areas of expansion had to wait several decades for professorial appointments. Surveying acquired degree status from 1949; but resources were not found for a professor (I.P. Williamson - later Surveying and Land Information, then Geomatics) until 1986. Chemical Engineering, introduced in 1953 was not even a separate department until 1961. S.R. Siemon was appointed foundation professor in December 1964 and the department moved into its own building in 1970.

A degree in Agricultural Engineering was available from 1958 and G.C.E. Downing was appointed foundation professor in 1977. In 1976 Keith Adams was appointed foundation professor of Electronics and Communications. Since 1983 the Faculty has enjoyed the support of the Engineering School Foundation, set up to mark the impending centenary of the faculty.

Civil Engineering & Surveying extension
Civil Engineering & Surveying extension
[Source: University of Melbourne Archives Media Photograph Collection, Photograph No 17371]

A three storey block for Mining and Electronics was opened in 1956 (though a lapse in funding later saw Mining dispersed to Ballarat) and the Faculty expanded further into a new building in 1963-4, and another new building for Electrical Engineering and Metallurgy was occupied in 1973.

Mining and Electronics building, c1955
Mining and Electronics building, c1955
[Source: University of Melbourne Archives Image Catalogue, UMA-I-1466]