Sir John Winthrop Hackett 1848-1916
Editor, politician, crusader for the founding of The University of Western Australia and a major benefactor
Sir John Winthrop Hackett 1848-1916
John Winthrop Hackett was born in County Wicklow Ireland in 1848, son of the Revd John Winthrop Hackett. He was educated at Trinity College Dublin (BA, 1871, MA, 1874) and was called to the Irish Bar in 1874.
While at Trinity he became friendly with another student, Alexander Leeper, also the son of a clergyman and in 1875 they travelled to Sydney together.
Hackett remained in Sydney for some months, took up journalism with the Sydney Morning Herald, and was called to the NSW Bar.
In 1876 Leeper became first Warden of Trinity College Melbourne, and invited Hackett to become his Vice Principal (later Sub-Warden). Soon after Leeper and Hackett arrived, Trinity was affiliated as a college ‘of and within the University of Melbourne’.
While at Trinity Hackett tutored in law, logic and political economy, and had a significant influence on the formation of the College’s intellectual and cultural life. In 1877 he supported the founding of the Dialectic Society, an essay and debating society modelled on the College Historical Society of Trinity College Dublin in which Hackett had been a particularly active member. He delivered the inaugural Prelector’s Address in 1879 entitled The History and Hopes of the University Movement.
In 1881 the students of Trinity College staged Mostellaria, the first Latin play ever performed in Victoria with Hackett playing the role of Theuropides.
Hackett resigned from Trinity in 1882 and went to Western Australia to manage a sheep station.
In 1883 he became a partner and business manager of the Western Australian, and later of the Western Mail. In 1887 he became editor of the West Australian. Through the paper he supported responsible Government and when this was achieved in 1890, the Premier, John Forrest, proposed Hackett for nomination to the Legislative Council. He remained a councillor until his death.
Through his newspaper ownership, council membership and his network of powerful friends, Hackett was able to influence the affairs of WA. He campaigned for, and supported many cultural and civic projects including the Zoological Gardens, the Public Library, the Western Australian Museum, the Preservation of Queens Gardens and Kings Park. He was president of the Zoological Gardens Board and chairman of the library until 1913.
Hackett was a passionate West Australian supporting Federation in terms which emphasised its benefit to WA. He was a West Australian delegate to the Federation Convention in Sydney in 1891.
Through his newspaper he supported projects which would provide the infrastructure for the developing colony, and then state, of Western Australia after the gold rushes, including a number of initiatives to support farmers.
But his name is most firmly linked with his contribution to education in Western Australia.
At Trinity College in the University of Melbourne, Hackett was practically involved in education and his address to the Dialectic Society in 1879 entitled The History and Hopes of the University Movement expressed the views he had already formed regarding the role of education in a colonial society.
As James Grant writes in Perspective of a Century, the Centenary history of Trinity College:
‘Thirty years later he proceeded to implement his ideas as first Chancellor and generous benefactor of The University of Western Australia’.
In his history of the first 50 years of The University of Western Australia, Campus at Crawley, Fred Alexander (himself one of the remarkable galaxy of historians Trinity College, the University of Melbourne, produced in the 20th century) writes:
‘There was little activity in Western Australia that was educational in character with which Hackett was not actively and vigorously concerned’.
Hackett served as chairman of the board of Perth High School, supported a commission of enquiry into public education in 1888, and influenced the 1893 amendment to the Education Act which allowed for religious education in government schools. He campaigned for the abolition of the dual system of education and the end of state aid to church schools which was legislated in 1895.
Hackett was registrar of the Anglican Diocese of Perth and Chancellor of its Cathedral Church of St. George.
From the beginning of his residency in Perth, Hackett made the establishment of a University one of his main objectives and was an active editorial writer and participant in Parliamentary debates on the subject of a university for Western Australia. He supported the establishment of a royal commission and when it met in 1909, Hackett was its chairman. He strongly believed that an Australian university should be open to the ‘sons of the people’.
When The University of Western Australia gave its first lectures in 1913, Hackett was its Chancellor and his vision of a University was expressed in the decision – decided on his casting vote – to charge no fees, and in the decision to allow both sexes equal facilities. Hackett also endowed the Chair of Agriculture.
In 1905 Hackett married the 18 year-old Deborah Vernon Brockman and they had five children, four daughters and a son, also John Winthrop Hackett, later General Sir John Hackett.
Hackett was made an honorary doctor of laws by the University of Dublin in 1902, knighted in 1911 and appointed KCMG in 1913. He died in 1916.
Hackett was a wealthy man and left many bequests to public institutions and charities, but The University of Western Australia received the largest bequest, which it used to build Winthrop Hall and the Hackett buildings, and to establish Hackett bursaries and Scholarships. The Church of England also received a bequest which it used to build St George's College in The University of Western Australia.
Trinity College, Dublin has a John Winthrop Hackett fund established in 1926 by Hackett’s bequest, to provide an award in applied science.
Although Hackett left Trinity College, the University of Melbourne, in 1882, he always maintained links through his friendship with Leeper, offering advice and support in letters. For example, in 1914 Hackett gave 100 pounds towards a gymnasium for Trinity College. He holidayed with the Leeper family at Macedon and, as godfather to Leeper’s son Allen, offered in 1897 to pay for his education. Allen also received further gifts of money from Hackett while at Oxford.
Leeper’s third son was named Geoffrey Winthrop in honour of his friend – and later, as Professor of Agricultural Chemistry in the University of Melbourne, Geoffrey Winthrop Leeper taught a future Hackett Professor of Agriculture at The University of Western Australia, and Vice-Chancellor of UWA, Professor Alan Robson, AM.
Hackett’s remarkable philanthropy has contributed to a culture of educational philanthropy supporting Trinity College - through the Trinity College Foundation - and in the Hackett Foundation at The University of Western Australia.
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