PLAQUE FOR IVEY HALL

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27425, 11 August 1954, Page 15

PLAQUE FOR IVEY HALL

Foundation Student’s Gift Ivey Hall, the original buildings ot Canterbury Agricultural College, Lincoln, so named last month in , °“ ou ,f,- of Sf e first director of the college (Mr W, E. Ivey), will bear a pl^Sue of historical interest. thPo Di J ec J°i <Dr - M - M - Burns) told me Board of Governors yesterday that on reading of the board’s decision, Mr Charles Wood, of Christchurch, the second student enrolled in 1880, and the only one of the original group survlY£nC’,Jia4, offered to give a plaque. Mr Wood’s enrolment, in the writing of Mr Ivey, was still on the books of the college, Dr. Burns said. Mr Wood being the first student by only 20 minutes. The plaque, of brass, would commemorate Mr Ivey’s work as first director (from 1880 to 1887) and as a pioneer of agricultural research in New Zealand. It would also recall Mr Wood’s place in the commemoration.

Yet another link with the past would De seen in the oak mounting for the plaque, Dr. Burns said. It would be from a college tree planted in 1880, almost certainly by Mr Ivey. ■ The plaque will probably be erected m the coming summer. It will definitely be in place when the college celebrates its seventy-fifth anniversary next year.

The diamond jubilee in 1940 had been quietly observed because of the war, Dr. Burns said, but there was a general* wish that the seventy-fifth anniversary should be recognised appropriately. A joint committee from the board of governors and the Old Students’ Association has been appointed to decide the time for the celebrations and their form.