125 stories for 125 years

The Swanston Street Campus

The County Court Building at 60 Swanston Street was purchased from the government for £400 by the Pharmaceutical Society of Victoria in 1882. Classes began there in 1884.

The County Court had been built in the 1850s of English firebricks on bluestone foundations. Bluestone steps led to the entrance. In addition to the courtroom there were six large rooms, all with mahogany fittings. The court’s furnishings were just as the Law Department had left them, with the judge’s box, prisoners’ dock and reporters’ tables still in place. The courtroom was used as the lecture room but the ‘seats for the spectators, facing sideways, were just forms with backs. Instead of sitting the ordinary way, students sat in the seats back to front, and used a board nailed to the back as a rest for their notebooks’.

Additions and alterations to the building commenced in 1895.The County Court building was 15 metres from the Swanston Street frontage and the additions were built in front of it. The new facade was variously described as Elizabethan or Gothic and used dark red bricks ‘of rich colour, relieved with a bluish brick, technically known as brindled’. There were contrasting moulded string courses, cornices and projections and a slate roof with terracotta cresting. Behind the offices, a new lecture hall was fitted with blackboards, cases of specimens and other teaching aids.

Charles Leslie (Les) Butchers became registrar in 1913. He had extra responsibilities relating to the extensions of the college, which were again considered necessary. Planned improvements were a second lecture theatre, a research laboratory, a pharmaceutical laboratory, a model pharmacy, the transfer of the library, board and council rooms to the new building, separate common rooms formale and female students and a room for lecturers. The old court was used as a museum and the judge’s seat was retained – the last reminder of the building’s former use. Work began in August and was complete by the end of 1913.

The lack of a research laboratory at the college was also considered a handicap and at the end of 1922, A.T.S. Sissons suggested a staff laboratory and preparation room were required. A room on the ground floor was equipped as a research laboratory in 1923. Mr Sissons continued his campaign to expand and improve the facilities of the college. In about 1930, the council adopted the innovatory policy that an architect should be used when adding to the building and to supervise maintenance and any alterations to the property.

Faced with high enrolments in 1935, Mr Sissons sought additional accommodation. He argued that extra work was created for the staff because they had to use the same room for two courses. He wanted adequate space for the efficient teaching and examination of pharmaceutics. Work began in October 1935 and the additions were ready for occupancy in May 1936.

The additions on the north and north-east sections of the building completed the building as a full block of three storeys, with the 1895 gable disappearing. A new pharmaceutical laboratory with accommodation for 100 students was on the first floor. On the ground floor was a senior laboratory for advanced work in practical manufacturing and for the fellowship work. The museum was remodelled and the chemical benches were replaced with display cases. A dark room and a storeroom were built in the basement, while internal adjustments enabled easy access to the laboratory and lecture rooms. The building was now the home of pharmacy organisation in Victoria and housed the Pharmacy Board of Victoria, the Pharmaceutical Society of Victoria, Pharmaceutical Defence Ltd, the Federated Pharmaceutical Services Guild of Australia (federal and state offices), Australasian Pharmaceutical Publishing Co. Ltd and the Pharmaceutical Association of Australia and New Zealand.

Yet by 1944 the college was once again struggling with a shortage of space and the existing building was considered obsolete and inadequate. There was general agreement that the location of the college was ideal. Architect plans were received that would permit the redevelopment of the site without losing the best features and enable the work to be done gradually in order to avoid disruption to the teaching program. The C.L. Butchers Memorial Library was incorporated into the plan.

In addition to new lecture rooms, expanded laboratory accommodation, research facilities, a modern library and a museum, there would be ample corridors, cloakrooms, a common room and an assembly hall with kitchen facilities. Provision was made to retain office space and meeting rooms for official pharmacy. The estimated cost for the rebuilding was £30,000 and the aim was to have the project completed in five years.

In 1945, while fundraising began, construction of offices on the Swanston Street level was undertaken. Following discussions with the committee of the Chemists Sub-branch of the Returned Soldiers’, Sailors’ and Airmen’s Imperial League of Australia (now known as the Returned & Services League [RSL]), the council approved the proposal that the new building would be dedicated as a memorial to members of the society and apprentices who died in both wars. The building was to be named ‘The Victorian College of Pharmacy War Memorial Building’ with prominent lettering on the front of the building and a dedication as a public war memorial.

Maintenance costs were becoming heavier because of the age of the building, the legacy of wartime shortages that had restricted upkeep and the strain on the building and its equipment caused by the pressure of numbers. Alistair Lloyd remembers that it was ‘terribly old and the downstairs laboratories had troughs where all the stuff from the upstairs sinks ran, so you got all these smells’. Dawn Sayers, who taught at the college for 35 years, commented that the ‘laboratories were rather beautiful. They had history and character but the basement was dreadful and we struggled to teach sterilisation there’.

By 1950 little progress on the redevelopment had been made. The council recognised that the project was not feasible without government assistance. A deputation from the council met with Premier Hollway and requested financial assistance for rebuilding or for a new building. His verbal support for rebuilding led to plans for a larger project. The council was now considering other sites. In 1951 the property at Parkville on Royal Parade was purchased by the society and in 1958 the War Memorial Building Appeal was launched. With funding from the Federal and State Governments, plus strong support from the profession and industry, the college moved from the city to the Parkville campus in 1960 and the first full time three-year pharmacy course in Australia commenced.

On 6 June 2006, over 120 guests assembled at the Oxford Scholar Hotel to unveil a plaque to commemorate the old site of the college at 360 Swanston Street, now RMIT University. Many graduates who spent time at the old campus got together to reminisce and renewold friendships. The plaque, which has been installed near 360 Swanston Street, is metal with a black and white finish. The old college magazine, The Excipient, and the college badge feature on the plaque, with an inscription denoting the college’s history and date of the change of premises.

Source: Bomford, J, Victorian College of Pharmacy: 125 years of history, 1881–2006,2006.