Welcome

If I were asked to describe as briefly and popularly as I could, what a University was, I should draw my answer from its ancient designation of a Studium Generale, or "School of Universal Learning." This description implies the assemblage of strangers from all parts in one spot; - from all parts; else, how will you find professors and students for every department of knowledge? and in one spot; else, how can there be any school at all? Accordingly, in its simple and rudimental form, it is a school of knowledge of every kind, consisting of teachers and learners from every quarter. Many things are requisite to complete and satisfy the idea embodied in this description; but such as this a University seems to be in its essence, a place for the communication and circulation of thought, by means of personal intercourse, through a wide extent of country.

John Henry Newman:The Idea of A University, 1854

Winthrop Hall Ceiling

Looking up you will see that the beams of the Great Hall have been decorated in true Renaissance tradition. However, the theme for the decoration is uniquely Australian. Artist George Benson based his motifs on symbolic and totemic Aboriginal designs representing them in earth tones such as red, yellow ochre, black from charcoal and pipe clay. "The soffits of the main beams are alternately a series of diamonds and squares copied from a shield of a south-western tribesman, while on the others is a running pattern of lines derived from the shield" of a local [Aboriginal] West Australian. "On the longitudinal beams there is an alternating pattern of circles from a chilara, and an unfinished drawing by a south-eastern [Aboriginal]. 

Archives and Records - Winthrop Hall