Meeting Again Of Top Minds
Newcastle Herald
Thursday September 25, 2008
THREE men who were former students and teachers of chemistry at Hunter TAFE reunited yesterday to mark 70 years of science at the Newcastle campus.
The men helped to celebrate the anniversary of the Edgeworth David Building, which has been producing science graduates since it was built in 1938.Many of those graduates went on to work for laboratories in Hunter industry at places such as BHP, Oak Dairy and Comsteel.The Edgeworth David Building was named after the geologist famous for discovering the Greta coal seam in 1886 and reaching the magnetic South Pole with Douglas Mawson in 1909.It used to be part of Newcastle Technical College and has been used by Newcastle Technical High School and the University of NSW. Chemicals fell off shelves, causing a fire in parts of the building in the December 1989 Newcastle earthquake.Jim Miller, of Charlestown, studied chemistry in 1943 and returned as a teacher in 1956.Ted Maltby, of Boomerang Gardens, was a student in 1942 and worked at Comsteel for 41 years and as a teacher at the TAFE.Merv Cotterill, of Shortland, a student in 1951, worked at Comsteel before returning to the TAFE as Jim Miller's assistant in 1972.
© 2008 Newcastle Herald