Students Hold Procession - 2nd July 1959.

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DescriptionStudents Hold Procession - 2nd July 1959. Newcastle Morning Herald.

This image was digitised as part of the UoN50 Project.

Students Hold Procession

“Autonomy Day,” Newcastle University College students’ version of university celebrations, got away to a good start yesterday when about 250 students took part in a procession along Hunter –street.

Six floats, many of them tilting at Newcastle City Council, took part in the procession. Which was seen by big shopping crowd in Hunter-street.

One float carried a large banner proclaiming “Edwards’ Elegant Refuse Removers.” Marching beside the float were a number of students dressed in toppers and wearing bow ties.

Another float had banners on” which were inscribed “Dunkley’s Ditch Diggers alias Baddeley’s Brain Boys” Alongside the float marched a number of students carrying picks and shovels, collecting rubbish as they marched.

A third float, carrying a number of students, who were apparently supposed to be building engineers, carried a slogan saying “your country needs you, but the Newcastle City Council doesn’t”.

Other floats lampooned – Dr. Billy Graham’s recent statement on British and Russia park morals.

The Liberace-“Cassandra” libel case.

The imprisonment of aboriginal artist Albert Namatjjra
.
The return of the staff to the Russian Embassy in Canberra.

Collection

The celebrations were staged with the idea of publishing the University revue, “Third Degree” and raising money for the Hunter Valley Research Foundation.

As the procession moved along Hunter-street students dressed in a variety of fancy costumes bailed up pedestrians and extracted toll from many of them.

The celebrations were characterised by a number of stunts and pranks. They included –

•Six “Chinese bodies” wrapped in calico shrouds in Newcastle Harbour and another one on Newcastle Beach.

•A dummy thrown off the roof of a Hunter-street hotel as a mock suicide of a hire-purchase debtor.

•An imitation Albert Namatjjra painting donated to Newcastle War memorial Cultural Centre. The painting was done on the sport in five minutes with a 4ich brush.

•Placing a red flag in the outstarched hand of Lyndon Dadswell’s “Him” in the foyer of the Cultural Centre.

•Climbing to the top of a 30ft navigation tower in Church-street to erect a banner advertising the University revue.

•Staging mock meteorological experiments with hydrogen-filled balloons in Hunter-street.

Hold-up

After they had performed their stunt in the foyer of the Cultural Centre about 100 students gathered in the roadway outside and bailed up every motorist that passed. So that nobody should escape, the students lifted the real wheels of the car and would not put them down till the motorist put something in their collecting box.

Most of the motorists took the hold-up in good part, but a few escaped the net by turning into Dawson-street.

Throughout the day the students collected £30 for the Hunter Valley Research Foundation.
Business Head Farewelled.

About 80 members of the staffs of Howard Smith Ltd. and Caledonian Collieries Ltd. farewelled Mr. J. S. Wright, Newcastle Manager, at the Princeton, Hamilton, on the eve of his retirement, after 38 years’ service.

SubjectAutonomy DayAutonomyNewsclippingsActivismNewspapersDate1959 Last edited by: lyn.keily@newcastle.edu.au

Last edited by: lyn.keily@newcastle.edu.au

Sourcehttps://www.flickr.com/photos/uon/7770984770/

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Exhibition Autonomy!

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