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Jnnity Co//eJe newsletter
no. 41
Colin Caldwell and Joseph Burke beautifully depicted by Charles Bush in a double portrait painted in 1952
TRINITY RECEIVES A MAJOR BEQUEST The largest bequest in the College's history of about $1,000,000 has been left by the late Colin Hicks Caldwell. His estate was divided equally between Trinity and the Ballarat Fine Arts Gallery. Trinity's portion is to be invested by the Perpetual Trustees Company and the income used for three purposes: 1. the aquisition of books and manuscripts for the College Library, 2. a visiting lectureship to the College every five years, 3. the general purposes of the College. The man who has so generously contributed to succeeding generations in perpetuity entered Trinity as a Law student in 1931. He was a gifted student but after graduation preferred the cultivation of a profound knowledge of books, paintings and porcelain to practising as a solicitor. He was an esteemed Librarian of the Melbourne Club. When the present Warden came to the College after his appointment as Warden, the first people he met were Professor Joseph Burke and Mr Colin Caldwell. They were firm friends, beautifully depicted in the above double portrait painted by Charles Bush in Colin Caldwell's living room in 1957. It is probable that some of the impulse to supplement the provision for the Library with a bequest 'for the general purposes of the College' is due to Joesph Burke's influence. Emeritus Professor Burke has written a short tribute to his friend, which we have pleasure in publishing here.
Colin Caldwell Colin Caldwell was a very private person. He was also modest. He therefore did not wish a public burial service, but a small private gathering of close friends. At the time of his death when he had no knowledge of its imminence, Colin was reading a life of Rupert Brooke. In one of his most famous poems Brooke had spoken of "laughter learnt of friends". The phrase was particularly applicable to Colin in whose life friendship played a major part. Even to the end Colin's friends will associate their visits to him with laughter. Sir Russell Grimwade in his life of Alfred Felton coined a phrase as memorable as the poet's and equally applicable to Colin. Writing of Felton's old age, he said that the philanthropist was not lonely, because "he had his thoughts for company". Colin's thoughts in old age were rooted in the past, but, like Felton's, directed to the future—that is, the future of the causes in which he believed. These causes coincided with the stages of his life: the University of Melbourne and Trinity College, with his youth; the Law School with his early career when he practised, rather against his will, as a lawyer; and the National Trust, when he was active on its Council and Committees. In between the last two comes a notable period as a writer of articles and reviews in Country Life, Art in Australia and The Age, written in a "lapidary" style, to use an old fashioned term meaning chiselled out of marble, an ideal vehicle for airing his views on the decline of art and society since the Georgian Rule of Taste. It is typical of Colin that each of these causes was linked with a personal friendship, or, group of friendships; the University with Professor Chisholm,
IS TRINITY IN YOUR WILL? A PUBLICATION OF TRINITY COLLEGE WITHIN THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE Registered by Australia Post—Publication No. VBG 4336.