From the Archives: The Dick Spann Library

FROM THE ARCHIVES DICK SPANN LIBRARY

Of the many donations to the College’s ample library collections, the bequest of over 12,000 volumes by Vice Principal Professor Dick Spann was by far the most complete and wide-ranging. His collection is now spread across shelves in the Reading Room and Spann Library, each volume identified with a serpentine ‘Sp’ on the spine. It is a testament to Spann’s avid, if idiosyncratic, mind that his personal library covered topics as diverse as classical literature, economic thought, local and global history, philosophy, politics and contemporary society.

Richard Neville Spann was not born in the 19th Century. He was in fact born in 1916, the child of joiner and cabinetmaker Thomas and Laura Martha Spann of Manchester.

From a background of no great privilege, Spann won a scholarship to Oxford where he read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Balliol College, graduating BA in 1937 (promoted MA 1946). After three years lecturing at the University of his native Manchester, he joined the Royal Navy in 1942 where he served as paymaster on numerous ships. After academic posts as a Rockefeller Foundation fellow at Harvard and Chicago Universities, and the Bureau of Budget in Washington DC, Spann accepted a Professorship of Public and Government Administration at The University of Sydney in 1954. It was at this time that he entered St Andrew’s College as Vice Principal. An energetic committeeman, Professor Spann served dutifully on many boards and bodies, within the University, but also in College and the wider community. He was twice Dean of Economics.

Spann was among the last generation of academic professors to achieve a Chair on the strength of a bachelor’s degree. The addendum of M.B.E. to his postnominals perhaps satisfied the superfluity of letters looked for in such a post, however, his real qualification was his prodigious research output of over fifty books, chapters, and articles.

As well as scholarly contributions, Professor Spann also advised Government directly. In the years during and after the Vietnam War, America and Australia saw the nations of South East Asia through the crude metaphor of dominos waiting for fall to Communist influence. Spann’s expertise in government administration was called on to help develop Western-style models for governments in the region.

Later in life, Spann reflected that he had spread his scholarly interests too wide to make a lasting contribution to any particular field. Certainly, his knowledge and library were diverse. Even so, many of his textbooks enjoyed uncommon longevity. As a monument to a mind and a man, however, his enormous library, proudly housed in the College’s finest public rooms, gives us a unique insight into his life, interests and work.

Mr Alex Wright (Fr 2014)

Faculty Head (Arts) and Acting Archivist

Top image: Professor Spann in conversation with the Vietnamese Ambassador and then Minister for Army, Malcolm Fraser.

Bottom image: Students studying in the library today.