‘Sneers, Jeers ... and Red Rantings’ Bob Lowry’s Early Printing at Auckland University College

Turnbull Library Record, Volume XXII, Issue 1, 1 May 1989, Page 5

‘Sneers, Jeers ... and Red Rantings’ Bob Lowry’s Early Printing at Auckland University College

PETER HUGHES

‘Our typographical naissance did not take place till the early thirties. . . . The credit must go to R. W. Lowry’ remarked Denis Glover in his review of New Zealand printing history. 1 While Glover has remained in our eyes a key figure in printing, Lowry is now remembered more for his lifestyle, but not as a printer of note. Yet Glover was right. Lowry’s example, notably with his Auckland University College publications, and his influence, were critical to the emerging fine printing scene. A reappraisal of his early efforts and achievements is timely. Glover’s statement is, in fact, public acknowledgement of his own debt to an old friend. As surviving correspondence proves, Lowry strongly influenced Glover’s own typographical education. 2 The correspondence shows too that Lowry’s enthusiasm for, and dedication to, printing laid the basis for a unique contribution to the New Zealand typographic scene.

Lowry was introduced to printing at Auckland Grammar School in 1928. There, under the guidance of two teachers, Peter Stein and Gerry Lee, Lowry ‘composed and printed in all parts of the city’ La Verite while in the fifth form. 3 There too, he met Glover, and their friendship blossomed. Glover soon moved to Christchurch, but the two kept in touch. In the following year Lowry’s experiments continued. He printed Opuscule , ‘an indiscriminate mixture of newspaper and magazine’ (Plate I), and was about to launch Zip when he was told to stop. Zip went no further than a prospectus as it was considered libellous by one of the teachers, and the project was ‘eradicated’ by his headmaster. Suitably chastised, Lowry confined his experiments in printing to broadsheets and advertisements for firms from his hometown, Paeroa, as well as helping out with the 1929 school magazine The Chronicle 4 These early examples reveal his growing interest in type-setting and the craft of printing. Lowry had purchased his first press in April or May 1929, a small Golding hand-platen that, together with ‘a font of 9 pt Hadlow [?] Roman oldface medium newspaper type, cost £2-10-o’.

He immediately enlisted help: ‘The Head of the Herald Jobbing Dept is immensely tickled and is going to do a lot of magnanimous and benevolent things for us’. 5 Perhaps this benevolent printer showed Lowry the rudiments of Linotype which by July, he claimed was ‘as easy as playing trains to work off. He was helped too with the Zip prospectus: ‘The eight heaviest lines were loaned by the Sun, and I pinched the initial W from Tech’. 6

In 1931, when he was eighteen, Lowry enrolled in History, English, French and Philosophy at Auckland University College. 7 He had been awarded a Lissie Rathbone scholarship for excellence in English and History, which provided £SO a year for three years and, as his headmaster reminded him, ‘you now have the opportunity of taking up a university course under favourable circumstances. I trust that you will concentrate on your work and not allow undue time to be taken up by hobbies and amateur journalistic distractions’. 8 Lowry was selfconfident, opinionated, and seemed assured of success. He was soon involved in the life of the College and joined both the Debating Society winning the Freshers Cup —and the Dramatic Club, and was part of the 1931 Carnival Committee. At the same time though, Lowry mulled over the possibilities of printing, and he toyed with the idea of teaming up with Glover in Christchurch to establish ‘a decent publishing business’. He seemed all set to head south in August, but then got cold feet:

I should stay in Auckland because my parents say so, because I’ll probably have a better chance of doing well academically, because I have no plausible reason for asking the Chancellor for a transfer, because I have recently met the most wonderful maiden in God’s wide world, and because I am rapidly blossoming forth into Varsity’s big fresher pea .... I have just been elected Secretary of next year’s Carnival Committee ... I understand that I am to be elected to the Lit. Club Committee next week, and the Lit Club want me to get out a mag for them right at the beginning of next year. 9

As early as May 1931, Lowry had offered to print Literary Club material, in particular, a ‘magazine’ which would contain critical articles about papers read before the Club as well as other ‘minor papers’. 10 This offer was made formal at the Annual General Meeting of the Dramatic Club in September when the Committee agreed to Lowry’s plan ‘whereby a small printing press might be put at the service of the Club and a Literary Club publication of some sort be produced.’ 11 At the same meeting too, Lowry succeeded Blackwood Paul as Treasurer of the Dramatic Club, and as he wryly commented to Glover, ‘I find myself as publisher, asking myself, as Treasurer, whether I can really permit the Literary Club to accede to my modest request’. 12 Lowry was tongue in cheek, but the situation was far from clear. Even at the time there was confusion about the authority of the Dramatic Club and the groups that devolved under it, A literary committee had earlier

been formed, with a dramatic committee, at the Annual General Meeting of the Dramatic Club in 1930: ‘one to control the dramatic side of our activities, and the other the literary side. The suggestion implies having a common chairman, two joint secretaries, and a joint treasurer.’ 13 Constitutionally, both the literary and dramatic committees were sub-committees of the Dramatic Club, and were responsible to the Vice President and President of that Club through their respective secretaries, joint treasurer and ‘common’ chairman.

The likelihood of confusion increased when in November 1931 a sub-committee of the literary sub-committee was set up ‘to deal with the affairs of such a magazine’ as Lowry offered to print. 14 The ‘magazine committee’ or ‘Phoenix committee’ as it came to be known comprised James Bertram as editor, Lowry as business manager, and Rilda Gorrie, Rona Munro, Jean Alison, D. H. Monro, Allen Curnow and Blackwood Paul, members. Lowry’s plan at this stage seems to have been quite simple. Using his own press, he would print the magazine, ‘a sort of junior Adelpht , and would sell it at a ‘good and sufficient price’ to defray Linotype expenses. He would also print material for other College clubs. 15 At the end of the 1931 College year Lowry, printer and business manager to the magazine, and treasurer of the Dramatic Club, returned home to his parents at Paeroa. Editor Bertram was on holiday in the South Island with Charles Brasch, while lan Milner solicited contributions and wrote for the as yet unnamed magazine. In a letter to R. A. K. Mason, Bertram gave an indication of its editorial direction:

Could [you] possibly let us have something for a literary club paper . . . [that] is ostensibly run for the benefit of the Lit Club & is intended, among other things, to preserve some of the best work done in the club . . . I’m afraid we can’t offer to pay for anything . . . But at least I can promise anything you give us will be decently printed . . . you’ve carte blanche to write on James Joyce or Professor Anderson; but I expect there’ll be some sort of censorship. 16

The committee hoped that the first issue of the magazine, now named The Phoenix in preference to Bertram’s Farrago, would be ready for 7 March, the beginning of the 1932 term. Lowry was sent manuscripts, and in an attempt to meet the March deadline he began work at a printery in Paeroa. But there were problems: many of his typographical ‘etceteras’ were still at his lodgings in Auckland, and he complained that Bertram was not sending sufficient copy to set. Furthermore the Paeroa printer was having troubles of his own, and Lowry feared that the printery would be shut down. By the time he left to return to Auckland, Lowry had managed to print fifteen pages. Two days before term commenced Bertram sent in a twenty page review, and his editorial was not completed until 8 March.

So the deadline passed, but this was hardly Lowry’s fault. At the start of the term he still had some thirty-five pages to set, which, he

estimated, would take a further fortnight. To cheer him up though, ‘ls lbs of brand-new modern book-face’ that he had ordered, arrived: ‘it’s wonderful stuff, and there’s heaps of it’. 17 Lowry had to diss his type ‘after each [page] . . . since there wasn’t enough type to set more than one page at a time’. But by late March the printing was completed: ‘the fifty-odd pages were laid in separate piles on a table in a ground floor room of the Student’s Association; I remember the excitement and seriousness with which our Phoenix committee filed around the table, gathering pages into sections . . . for stapling and binding.’ 18

It was, says Keith Sinclair, ‘a miraculous moment’ in ‘the intellectual and literary history of the College’. 19 Typographically, The Phoenix fell far short of Lowry’s own expectations, and a note inserted at his request commented on its ‘somewhat bedraggled appearance’, while the editorial itself mentioned ‘typographical flaws and inconsistencies’. In Paeroa Lowry had been forced to use Century Expanded for text, Cheltenham italics for poetry and Artcraft italics for headings. They are all uninspiring faces. Once in Auckland, he put the £2 worth of 10 pt Garamond Roman and small caps to good use, but he still had to shop

around for italics and bold headings. The result is an unsettling array of headings and text faces; 24 pt and 36 pt ATF Modernistic Titling caps; 16 pt Artcraft small caps, and 24 pt Italics; 10 pt Garamond; 10 pt Cheltenham italics and 10 pt Caslon Old Face italics (Plate II). The title-page too is undistinguished; the 36 pt Goudy Old Style Titling caps and 12 pt Garamond caps avoid each other at the top and bottom of the page, while a Phoenix block, in orange, lies stranded in between (Plate III). Some poems are crammed two to a page amidst ornaments while others languish in a sea of white. It is small wonder that the editorial promised that the next issue would ‘have its own type; the format will be standardised and the layout improved and made uniform’. Again Lowry cannot be blamed. The erratic supply of copy meant effective layout was impossible. Indeed, that the issue appeared at all is testimony to Lowry’s perseverence. As editors James Bertram, and later R. A. K. Mason declared, without Lowry there would have been no Phoenix at all.

Lowry had aspirations beyond the printery. Like others at the time, he coveted the editorship of Phoenix. In fact, he felt that Bertram had ‘snatched’ it from him, and believed he would become editor once Bertram took up his Rhodes scholarship in 1933. In the meantime, however, and with the first Phoenix issue behind him, Lowry worked on promoting himself as the potential College printer. In May 1932 he tried to interest the Students’ Executive in a scheme to buy a better press. He lobbied for a forand new flat bed rotary’ which, without motor, would have cost £285. The money was to come from the Literary Club, Social Club, College Office, and the Carnival Committee which organised, among other things an annual play. In return, Lowry would

print carnival programmes, Kiwi, 21 Craccum 22 ‘tickets, notepaper and invitations’ as well as the annual College calendar. But as he confided to Glover: ‘What’s bothering Stud Ass is this . . . what happens to the press when I leave (in three years time) .... This is my suggestion: that when I leave I take the press from them at its then value and pay them for it in extended payments (10 yrs).’ 23

Lowry provided what he thought was an impressive list of the savings he believed he could bring about: ‘The estimates’, he said, ‘have of course allowed for wholly linotyped^ obs down town. I’ve gone into this pretty thoroughly and it’s sound’. The Executive was not convinced, and one Committee member moved that Lowry’s offer ‘be rejected owing to the risk involved’. But this motion lapsed for want of a seconder, and Bertram, now wearing his hat as Executive Secretary, moved that Lowry’s proposal be adopted: ‘The . . . press to be placed at his disposal on condition that he satisfactorily print and publish the magazines detailed in the scheme submitted . . . subject to the drawing up of conditions satisfactory to the President, Secretary and Business Manager.’ 25

The Executive, naturally enough, was anxious that the project was financially viable, and so passed over the £285 press in favour of a second-hand treadle platen which, together with an electric motor cost £54-10-0. They also wanted a watertight agreement with Lowry, and the June minutes recorded that ‘Messrs Hill and Postlewaite’ would draft an ‘agreement in legal form’. 26 Unfortunately this agreement has been lost, but Lowry provided his account of it to Glover and, balancing this, Postlewaite’s Report which was written for the Student Executive some eighteen months later has also survived. According to Lowry he was to get 25% of profits, ‘the remainder going into a special fund which I can call upon at any time for further supplies of type and other materials’. 27 Posdewaite’s Report was more thorough, stating that Lowry was to receive 45% of the net profit and the Executive guaranteed ‘monetary losses’ should they occur. He ‘was not permitted to do outside printing’, and it laid down that Lowry’s ‘wages’ would be used to ‘liquidate the cost of the press’. If this later Report is to be believed, the Executive was somewhat reluctantly drawn into a deal with Lowry ‘after a great deal of agitation’ from Phoenix supporters. 28

Lowry too, now found himself tied; to a Business Manager, to accountability with auditors, and to a dreary yet very strenuous programme of printing student publications. The omens were not good. But at the time, Lowry was ecstatic. He had an adequate press, a ‘comprehensive supply of good type and falldedals to play around with’. He had also set up a printery in a basement room of the Science Building which faced Symonds Street. It was, says Elsie Locke, ‘a little, tiny box, absolutely cluttered and filled with notices . . . [where] he

would just work and work and work until the small hours of the > 29 morning. From it he turned out the carnival programme, The Goat’s Train in June; Phoenix , v. 1 no. 2 by August, and by the beginning of September, Kiwi 1932. 30 The Goafs Train was hack work, ‘slapped onto the press indiscriminately and with extreme rapidity’ 31 to make the carnival deadline of 20 June. There were so many proofing errors in it that Lowry felt obliged to include a ‘Misprint Competition’ for readers. But Phoenix v. 1 no. 2 and Kiwi 1932 were a different matter. From both a typographical and design point of view, they represented a tremendous advance in Lowry’s craftmanship.

The layout of this Phoenix is much more carefully considered than the first. The title page is harmonious; 24 pt and 42 pt Caslon Titling caps with 14 pt Caslon Old Face caps occupy the top third of the page and their setting echoes the linocut frontispiece opposite. The margins white space are well proportioned and even the device looks comfortable atop a more generous 12 pt Caslon Old Face italic (Plate IV). There is one feature that does not work. The Caslon small caps have been set too wide a full em and would have been better handjustified so that there visual values were equalised. The text and contents pages too, show an increasing confidence. The latter employs initial letters in Caslon Romanwith the balance of each line in Italic, while the text pages, set in 12 pt Casloh Old Face have Goudy Bold headings above a thick rule. As a variant on running heads, the foot of each left hand page has the appropriate article title, while ‘The Phoenix’ is on every right hand page. Lowry qoncentrated on using one family with some interesting exceptions the verso of the contents page, for example, was handset in Lowry’s own Garamond. To round off the issue, Lowry printed a colophon, ‘Auckland ... at the University Press’.

The improvements between issues one and two are so great that Lowry must have had considerable advice. Ron Holloway, who worked alongside Lowry at this time, largely credits the improvements to Len Morrison, an architectural student ‘who was a good draughtsman . . .

and who advised on layout and special type’. Holloway also mentions ‘a professional printer’ whose name was Markham. 32 ‘Pip’ Arden and J. C. Beaglehole, both on the College staff in 1932, were also interested in typography. According to Holloway, Beaglehole had a Christmas card with one of his poems printed at the press.

T. V. Gulliver was also a commanding presence in Auckland. He ‘designed what was probably the first well-printed book of poetry done in New Zealand’. 33 Gulliver was a true enthusiast. In the late twenties he gave talks to interested people on the principles of typography. His library included works such as Joseph Thorp’s influential and practical Printing for Business; A Manual of Printing Practice in Non-technical Idiom, 34 but most important, his ideas carried through to a sense of typographical

design that was very sound. Programme designs that are almost certainly his are notable for their adherence to ‘classic’ symmetrical typography, to their use of the ‘new’ typefaces and the restrained use of colour in titling (Plate V). Such typographical flair was rare in New Zealand, and Lowry must have been impressed. A number of Gulliver’s programmes, each signed by Gulliver, survive in Lowry’s own collection. 35

There were also the influences from England and the United States, particularly those coming from the master typographer Stanley Morison. In 1922 Morison had been appointed as typographic adviser to the Monotype Corporation, and he initiated and supervised the recutting of many of the ‘classic’ typefaces. A necessary ally in this project was ‘a printer of high quality to do credit to the types produced’ and, from 1925, ‘the Cambridge University Press under Walter Lewis’ fulfilled this role ‘in a campaign which was to cause so profound a change in the appearance of books all over the world’. 36

Morison and the Monotype Corporation certainly provided the materials for enthusiasts to use. And Lowry was one. He would have seen the Monotype advertisements in The Adelphi, which the Literary Club received from 1931. Earlier, he had ‘perused and rhapshodised [sic]’ over the famous 1928 Times Printing Supplement which Morison had written. 37 Morison’s influence was evident also in The Fleuron, a Journal of Typography published between 1923 and 1930, and available in the Auckland Public Library. This had printed Morison’s ‘First Principles of Typography’, an important series which was later published in book form. Lowry thought The Fleuron ‘A marvellous piece of work’. He also knew other similar journals The British Printer and the Inland Printer.

So the ideas and ideals of this typographical ‘renaissance’ could be tapped. But what of the materials, the typographical ‘etceteras’? Most local trade printers used Linotype machines but Monotype too was available. As Lowry informed Glover:

Try Whitcombes for Monotype (especially in sizes above 12 pt). It’s much cheaper than typefounders stuff, and in the larger sizes anyhow, every bit as good. You might also try Morrison and Morrison for Monotype . . . you couldn’t go wrong by sticking to the Garamond faces in all sizes, Roman and Italic and Small Caps. It’s highly legible, very beautiful in Italic and has a sound tradition behind it for classic printing. 38

The second Phoenix then, shows an emerging typographical discipline and the lessons that Lowry learned he carried over to Kiwi 1932, with the exception of the title-page. This uses many styles of Gaslon to parody the title-pages of seventeenth century books and as a result sits uncomfortably against the text of the magazine (plate VI). This was a happy time for Lowry. At the Annual General Meeting of the Literary Club he had been elected ‘typographical adviser’ amidst

considerable ribbing. Pseudonymously, he clarified the difference between ‘adviser’ and ‘printer’ in Craccum.

A printer, as defined by the Royal College of Surgeons, is a person whose consumption of liquor is so large that his eyes fail to line up by two ems and a non-pareil. His conversation is always in 72 points heavy face, set solid, with a shriek four picas away in the other direction. A typographer, in terms of the Orchards Inspection Act of 09, is a spindle-shanked son of a gun with long hair, long fingernails and a long bill at the tobacconists. His nose is the same shade as blue laid ledger, quad crowned seventy, his top margin is a little thin and his gutters all to glory, but otherwise he dummies out to perfection. 39

With the ‘astonished’ success of Kiwi 1932 under his belt, Lowry again went angling for a better press —as well as fulltime employment this time to the Professorial Board of the College. ‘[Ejgged on by three of the most authoritative [profs]’ Lowry wrote to their Chairman, and proposed the purchase of a ‘small new cylinder printing press’, the very one the Students’ Association Executive had previously vetoed, to establish an Auckland University College Press. Lowry ran through the merits of the scheme and concluded:

I would therefore very gladly undertake the operation of this Press as my permanent occupation. ... It is my intention to proceed to the degree of M.A., so that the post of College printer shall lack nothing of the academic dignity attaching to such posts in older countries. I propose also to make a close study of typography and bibliography with a view to possible College courses in either or both in more favourable times; and had thoughts of trying later to proceed Home for experience with the University Presses there if possible. 40

It was an exciting prospect, and Lowry was optimistic: ‘Life is running very sweetly for me . . . my lines are nearly laid in Academia Auckland reusu .’ 41 The Chairman of the Professorial Board, according to the Auckland Star , ‘considered the project worthy of serious investigation and consideration’, and Sir George Fowlds, President of the College, added ‘Quite an interesting development was taking place in the College. Printing work had been done by the students, and done well’. 42 The proposal was referred from the Professorial Board to the Finance Committee, whereupon Lowry canvassed them: ‘The proposal is to purchase a machine to do the actual printing, and to have the binding done and most of the type set outside the College. Working on that system, the Students’ Association managed in a single term, under extremely disorganised conditions, to effect a saving of over £6O. ,43 He backed up these claims with a list of savings he thought possible in the printing of the College calendar, the prospectus for the School of Architecture, and the College Bulletin series. But the enthusiasm and appeals came to nothing. On 22 November, a brief letter informed Lowry that ‘the Council regrets that it cannot see its way to taking any action in this matter’. 44 Perhaps Lowry had been overly optimistic,

but the response was a real blow and he was thoroughly depressed over it. So 1932 ended on a low note, and Lowry went home to Hikutaia to recuperate: ‘I got pretty sick of life towards the end of this year but this vacation I’m more or less at rest internally.’ 45 For as well as the physical demands of printing —he claimed he was working sometimes fourteen hours a day, six days a week Lowry had to cope with other pressures at College. He had failed terms in Political Science, and only passed having sat ‘an exhaustive exam viva voc<?. And his debts began. By his own account he owed the Students’ Executive £42. The printing contract too was beginning to cause headaches. Lowry was supposed to have presented the contract at the Executive meeting in December, but it was not ready. Eric Blow, who had been allocated the Publications portfolio came to his rescue and moved that Lowry ‘be authorised to act as if Contract had been ratified’. 46 While this gave Lowry breathing space over the Christmas holidays, the pressure was still there. As well, Lowry had been deeply involved in the freedom of speech controversy which erupted at the College during 1932. At the heart of it was J. C. Beaglehole, Lowry’s History lecturer at College, who, depending on the point of view was ‘sacked’ from his post for defending academic freedom of speech and denouncing anti-Communist ‘hysteria’, or was not reappointed because of the financial stringencies facing the College. 47 Lowry sided firmly with Beaglehole, and was one of six History Department delegates to place a set of resolutions before the Students’ Executive on 9 September demanding that their ‘emphatic protest’ be backed by the Executive. 48

Lowry’s involvement was indicative of his growing political maturity. Until then his political views had been quite simple. He compared communist Russia unfavourably with capitalist England. If England did not ‘wake soon out of [its] heavy-handed daydreaming’, it would ‘be little better than a Bolshevik parade ground’. He was, at this time, influenced by what he called Bergson’s ‘emotional-intellectual’ philosophy:

‘Back to nature’ is the thing: ‘the simple life’ every time . . . the whole botchy economical and financial organisation of civilisation is crumbling in ruins. . . . While all the while, Nature is howling . . . trying persistently and pertinaciously in every way to point out . . . that she is the only thing that never goes wrong in the balance. . . . The solution is fairly obvious. I do not advocate naktkultur or pagan licentiousness, but a decent classical simplicity. . . . An experimental society of young, enthusiastic city dwellers of the intelligent type to form a model rustic arcadia is very much needed.

His method for attaining social justice involved forming and working through youth movements: ‘Dunedin and Auckland are unmistakably veering towards one. The thing will obviously fail . . . because there are not enough intelligent young people in New Zealand even to change

a single byelaw [sic].’ 49 Lowry’s philosophy typified what Mason later called ‘revolutionary romanticism and left-wing lyricism’, which he felt hindered any real political change. ‘The whole militant proletarian movement in N.Z. was too unreal, too much in the nature of a dream in which oratory played the part of dream-fulfilment’. 50 It was an elitist attitude, which even the Queen Street riots in mid-April failed to dent. Lowry’s only comment to Glover about these was ‘I too an SPC [Special Police Constable?] in the days of the late civil riots and commotion, with similar emotions, sentiments and experiences to yours’. 51 Any ‘real row’ he advocated, and the one he thought ‘badly overdue’, was with the College authorities:

I’ve been cogitating somewhat lately [about] the completely futile servility of New Zealand undergraduates to the completely futile senility of the N.Z. Univ. College authorities. N.Z. University won’t be worth a tin of stale fish till it ceases to be a combination night-school and kindergarten. Furthermore, the spirit is afoot to change it. The time is ripe; the ‘Zeitgeist’ is all for it. Let’s start something. 52 The freedom of speech issue then, seems to have been a crucial event for Lowry, and it was an issue that was to have disastrous effects for him during the next two years. In January 1933 Lowry returned to Auckland to set and print Phoenix v. 2 no. 1, whose new editor R. A. K. Mason, Lowry thought a ‘livewire’. 53 In February Glover visited from Christchurch: ‘Bring a large notebook and receptive mind’ advised Lowry, ‘[and] garner in a week the hard-won harvest of five years blood and sweat.’ He promised Glover ‘an earful’ about the ‘aesthetic principles of typography’, having absorbed Morison and Eric Gill whose An Essay in Typography first appeared in 1931. 54 Glover and friend came and went ‘leaving behind them a quantity of empty bottles [and] several broken (or at least cracked) hearts’. 55 Printing for the third Phoenix was finished by late March, but then as Mason recounted ‘while the intended issue was in page form, Martin [Sullivan, President of the Students’ Association Executive] went into the Printery, read the proofs and demanded that work be stopped.’ 56 The offending article was Eric Cook’s ‘Groundswell’,

a ‘rhapsodic piece which might be taken to advocate free love’. 57 Sullivan called a special meeting of the Executive which fired off a letter to Lowry as ‘the Executive’s official printer’: ‘the said article is not fit for publication in a student body. My Executive has therefore resolved that unless the said article is removed from the impending issue of Phoenix , you will be instructed to refuse delivery of the magazine to the committee in charge of the publication thereof.’ A further special meeting of the Executive on 5 April voted on a motion put by John Mulgan that, ‘the article be deleted or the whole publication suppressed’. Mason protested ‘vehemently’ but agreed to settle for the right to insert a note explaining the deletion. As Mason had hoped, such an insertion ‘“made* the issue, so keen was the interest in banning at the time. We also,

as a culmination, made quite a bit extra by running off copies of “Groundswell” and selling them separately.’ 5 For Lowry the consequences were unfortunate as the Executive now looked more closely at what he was doing and, in particular, his business practices. They re-examined the printing contract and added to it a clause which specified that he prepare quarterly estimates. Furthermore he would ‘be paid such sum in advance as the Business Manager deem fit’. 60 From the Executive’s point of view the move was logical. As the press was presumably being repaid by regular instalments, the outgoings for paper, inks, the Monotype founts and the Linotype bills for type which Lowry had bought, could all be estimated and set off against ‘monies received’. But the move upset Lowry, and he probably continued to ignore such directives while smarting at the Executive’s interference. He was also exhausted and at Easter took himself home to Hikutaia:

I was as tired as Hell of mucking around up here: and I reckon I saved myself from a nervous breakdown. Economy in time, money and sleep ... I suddenly woke up and things are going with a bang . . . something has to be done about this bloody narrow-minded sex-twisted censorial attitude in the colleges. 61 By May though, the Executive was more emphatic. It demanded better business practices: All orders for printing from A.U.C. Societies are to be made through the Business Manager [to] ensure that the volume of work is reasonable. . . . You are requested to furnish a schedule identifying the type held, its cost, and the purpose for which it was bought. Until this is done, no request for further financial assistance can be considered. 62

Compounding the Executive’s dissatisfaction was Lowry’s performance in printing Craccum within budget. Lowry had agreed in March to print five issues for £4-10-0 an issue but by June the Executive was threatening to end the contract ‘unless the [impending] issue is printed at the price you quoted’. 63 Lowry’s response was ‘A late, slippy edition’ in mid-June. Once again Truth took the College to task. Under the front page banner ‘N.Z. Universities Hotbeds of Revolution. Red hot gospels of highbrows’ Truth fulminated:

These facts are clearly revealed in the student publications which pour out the puerile propaganda of superior, self-satisfied schoolboys and schoolgirls . . . The Phoenix [and Oriflamme ] are packed with the most rabid revolutionary ravings. Page after page is devoted to furthering the destruction of everything the community has and holds today, and to loud and long praises of everything that happens in the Soviet republic . . . The Phoenix brands critics as ‘morons’... if they utter a protest against the sneers, jeers, bellicose blasphemies, red rantings and sex-saturated sophistries of young men and women who are graduating to become the leaders of the community tomorrow. 64

Rock O’Shea, the College Registrar and power of the day, had already graced the front page during the Beaglehole incident. He was most likely aghast at more adverse publicity focussing on the College and he just may have leaned on Martin Sullivan, Executive President, to quieten things down, for as Sullivan later remarked: ‘He [O’Shea] would frequendy alert me to controversial issues which might be likely to arise between the governing body and the students, and at times we could setde them between us by adopting an agreed policy and trying to steer our respective constituencies in the right direction.’ 65 Many students too, had been alienated by the tone of The Phoenix. A correspondent to Craccum noted that The Phoenix contributors were ‘aggressively conscious of being the chosen people; but then that is the privilege of evangelists the world over. And it is surprising that they should have been given a pulpit by the literary club, which has, after all, other work to do.’ 66

Certainly the reception of the content of The Phoenix overshadowed any consideration of its typographical merits. These showed a further quantum leap in confidence. As if to foreshadow the radical content within, the title-page was set in Eric Gill’s Roman Sans, and the bold vertical rule, which binds the engraved block of the phoenix to the rightjustified text, is derivative of contemporary asymmetric German typography (Plate VII). The ink used on the tide page is a rust brown. The text headings make consistent use of Gill Sans, while Lowry still adhered to 12 pt Caslon Old Face for body text. Interestingly, this titlepage was the one Glover later singled out for criticism. ‘[lt] consists of three asymetrical [sic] dollops of Gill Sans standing round like people who haven’t been introduced at a party.’ 67

Amidst the rumpus, one publication pleased the authorities. A Jubilee Book had been planned to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the College in 1933. It had been mooted in 1932, with Eric Blow as editor. In March 1933 Blow sent out circulars, printed by Lowry, soliciting the contributions necessary to cover the costs of publication. This was done, and early in May Lowry began printing the Book. It is now not known who was responsible for its typography and layout. An acknowledgement thanks Lowry ‘by whom the book was arranged and printed’, but this ambiguity, together with mention of T. V. Gulliver and Len Morrison, suggests that typographic responsibility was at best shared. Caslon was once again used extensively: the title-page is a mixture of ATF and Monotype Old Face and roman fonts in sizes from 18 pt to 36 pt (Plate VIII). Lowry was congratulated by the Executive, and they, in turn, by the Registrar. Typically though, the Book was late. It appeared a month after the Jubilee celebrations had ended and many remained unsold. 68

In retrospect, this period can be seen as the turning point in the Student authorities’ attitude to Lowry and the press. From May 1933 they slowly reasserted control over the delinquent Phoenix and its ebullient printer. This reassertion of control took two forms; the Executive wrestled with the tortuous constitutions of the Literary and Dramatic Club, and the Phoenix Committee; and it heard alternative proposals for publishing Phoenix that Mason put forward.

The clubs were told to submit their constitutions. ‘Apparently there is some irregularity which will require action on [our] part’. 69 The Literary and Dramatic Club responded unsatisfactorily, for the Executive at its June 9 meeting asked to see ‘a full copy’ of their rules. These were quickly forwarded to the mid-June meeting where it was agreed that they be ‘entirely amended’. 70 With this, the Club took fright, and a combined meeting reconstructed the ‘lost’ clauses of the constitution, and discussed ‘the whole of that portion of the constitution referring to Phoenix’? 1 Minutes of the mid-June Executive meeting state baldly a request by Sullivan that ‘the special meeting held on Wednesday

[l4 June] to consider the Printing Press position be placed on record. No motions were passed’. 72 It is not known if Lowry attended that meeting, but his activities were certainly being called to account. At the heart of the matter was the Executive’s determination to squeeze Mason out. The Secretary wrote to the Phoenix committee seeking confirmation that all its members were bona Jide students, that is, enrolled in full or parttime study. Only bona jide students could hold positions in clubs or societies. By the end of June it had clarified matters sufficiently to state unequivocally to the Literary and Dramatic Club: ‘you have an officer, namely the editor of phoenix, who does not comply with the bona jide student rule. This rule must be enforced.’ 73 Mason had no choice, but he did have a plan. Although the records are hazy on this point it seems he wanted to continue to publish Phoenix independently of the College, and that the Executive was sympathetic. In mid-June he put to them a proposal which they treated with cautious acceptance. Unfortunately the proposal itself is lost, but Mason later made clear reference to this idea. 74 By this stage any effective support of allies in the Literary and Dramatic Club for the status quo had withered. Early in July the Club met to discuss ‘policy in the matter of Phoenix. Sullivan moved:

That it is the opinion of the Club that the Phoenix is not carrying out the policy or wishes of the Club, and that, in view of this fact, the Club cease to publish the Phoenix, and that recommendation be made that the magazine be published by the formation of an affiliated society.

While this motion was defeated, the alternatives put forward by Mulgan and Lowry, and carried, made little real difference: ‘that a recommendation be made to the Phoenix committee that no editorial be published, that all articles be signed, that literary matter be not less than half of the contents, and that political articles be written to show differing points of view.’ 75 For events had taken decision-making beyond differing points of view.’ For events had taken decision-making beyond the confutes of the Club.

Lowry’s increasingly precarious position worsened as a result of his contribution in yet another freedom of speech issue, this time in the competing claims of candidates for the June election to the College Council. The Reverend Dr H. Ranston’s nomination for re-election was supported by many who were, in effect, the ruling clique. Opposing him was W. H. Cocker who claimed that Ranston’s attitude to freedom of speech was ‘at best a controlled liberty’. The issue was seen as one of academic freedom: ‘no more important issue has ever been placed before Convocation since its foundation’. 76 Broadsheets and leaflets flew, and Lowry was responsible for printing at least one on behalf of Cocker. This was an ill-considered action at best; the use of the College printery to promote one candidate at the expense of the other.

By then too, Phoenix v. 2 no. 2, the last issue, was out. Its content was more overtly political than any previous issue, including, for

example, a review by N. M. Richmond, the radical WE A organiser, of John Strachey’s influential The Coming Struggle For Power, ‘these 400 pages bring a . . . feeling . . . that we are living on the verge of new ways of thinking and acting in the political and economic sphere.’ Lowry himself reviewed The Student Vanguard, an English universities magazine with contributions by students who ‘actually know something about conditions in Russia and spend their vacations investigating them further. . . . [lt] is a darned good little student communist paper’. 77

Typographically, the last Phoenix was Lowry’s best effort. While less exuberant than the previous issue, it is tighter, more assured. The titlepage is divided by a point. Above it, ranged in three comers and justified on opposite margins, are the title and colophon all set in Gill Sans, from 18 pt roman to 36 pt caps. Below the point, white space. Within, text pages are 12 pt Caslon Old Face and 18 pt Gill Sans medium tide. The dust cover is quite striking. On brick coloured paper the title and subtitle and publication details are in Caslon tiding, with the phoenix device in between (Plate IX).

Lowry was now in a real dilemma. The Executive, prodded by Registrar O’Shea on the one hand, and Mason on the other, had clearly determined what the ‘rightful printing’ of a College Literary Club should be. This was not palatable to Lowry. Even though his aspirations still lay with the idea of a College printing press, his sympathies and, increasingly, his loyalties, lay elsewhere. He then printed an item which in its content and method of production, sealed his fate. Sometime in August Lowry designed and printed a ten page booklet by Sid Scott Douglasism or Communism ? (Plate X). Its content was radical:

We are witnessing world-preparations for a final grand assault upon the working classes. The Soviet Union is itself in imminent danger of attack. The issue deepens, the rumble of war chariots becomes louder. Social strata are crystallising. Labourism, currency reform, Douglas credit. Soon these must gravitate to one side or the other. Those who are not with us are against us. Fascism or Communism? There is no middle path. 78

Lowry’s role must have seemed unacceptably provocative to the already alienated Executive and College authorities. For the College the issues were clear; where, and at whose expense, had Lowry printed the booklet? The colophon states ‘Printed by R. W. Lowry, 743 Manukau Road, Auckland’, but Lowry had no printing press at his home address and it is probable that his critics now had sufficient ammunition to use against him. Indeed, evidence later furnished by O’Shea in November makes clear that the critics were right; not only had Lowry charged the job to the Students’ Association, but the type ‘was delivered by Mr Connelly [of Printers’ Linotype Service] to the College’. 79 August and early September then must have been a miserable time for Lowry. He had broken too many rules, and action by the authorities was inevitable. Nonetheless, he continued to print. Mason was still

gathering material for a fifth issue of Phoenix ; ‘I like stuff written in the most vigorous praise or blame-black be black, white white, and above all, red red’. 0 Someone, probably Lowry, had galleys of these contributions made, including a review of Douglasism or Communism?: ‘a remarkable little pamphlet’. 81 The printing of the first volume of poetry was begun: Allen Curnow’s Valley of Decision, promised since June, was being machined by September (Plate XI). The inevitable action came. Late in September O’Shea ‘confirmed’ with the Executive that:

absolutely no printing will be done on, or with Student Association press, equipment, or material except for, or for the purposes of, college administration, or the Students’ Association, including any of its affiliated Clubs or Societies ... it is understood that this decision will be very definitely impressed upon the printer. 82

At the same time, Lowry sent a letter to the Executive which they took to be his resignation as their printer: ‘the Executive has decided that you be asked for official confirmation of your decision to terminate the contract. . . .An early intimation will oblige’. 83 Their request went unanswered until November, for Lowry had fled. Leaving Ron Holloway in the middle of the Curnow job, Lowry hitch-hiked south with Elsie Farrelly, en route to Glover in Christchurch:

Auckland has got too much for me and I’m coming South. Overwork has taken my nerves so badly that I can’t think straight to clear up the mess, and I’m cutting my losses. If there’s any chance of a job for me in Christchurch at even a quid a week let’s know and I’ll come. Here’s your big chance for us to get together as advocated . . . I’ll be reduced to extreme shabbiness & £4 when I hit Wellington. 84

Auckland did not of course turn a blind eye to Lowry, and the disciplinary procedures began. In October, his application for exemption from Terms examinations was turned down; his scholarship revoked; and worst of all, the Professorial Board of the College resolved to suspend him ‘sine die, and report the matter to the New Zealand University’. 85 Lowry had been proscribed. In November the financial mess of the press under Lowry was revealed. O’Shea received a letter from a receiver appointed to Queen City Press, Lowry’s chief supplier of metal, stating that £19.17.6 was outstanding. This was the tip of the iceberg. In a Report to the Students’ Association Executive, Postlewaite stated that Lowry’s actions and departure left the Students’ Association itself in financial difficulties.

Debts and liabilities contracted in connection with the printing press [amount] to £342.18.7. It can be definitely established that this amount represents £70.19.2 for Mr Lowry’s own private debts, £35.5.8 due to Phoenix magazine creditors, and £185.8.10 is a charge against the Students’ Association. The balance, £51.4.11, is for metal against which credit notes have been received. 86 On hearing this, the Executive denied responsibility for the Phoenix

committee debts; agreed to seek legal advice if need be; and suspended Lowry from membership of the Association.

Lowry, meantime had teamed up with Glover, and over Christmas they produced the undistinguished Little Plays for Maori Legends under the most appalling conditions. Because Lowry was proscribed from Auckland University College, he was also banned from the Canterbury campus. As Glover recalled, ‘I, who was persona grata, would be machining busily in the basement [under the law students’ lecture room], while Lowry, who had established himself in a 5s a week hutment down the road, would there set up the type and bring it down to me’. 87 At some stage though Lowry decided to face the music, and early in 1934 he returned to Auckland:

This is the position. When I got home I found that the Photo Engravers had me in Court and I had to buy myself out to save bankruptcy and all chance of ever getting back to Varsity. . . . Debts of one sort and another up to just over £IOO have been reduced to about £54 by getting discounts and selling my type to Posdewaite and Co. And an extremely philanthropic ex-member of the Phoenix Committee has paid off the rest on long term loan. So Pm just out of the woods. 88

Lowry desperately wanted to return to University and throughout February and March lobbied both the Students’ Executive, for readmittance to the Association, and the College authorities, for the lifting of his suspension. By the middle of March Lowry had convinced the Executive of his intentions, and he was readmitted. But there was no reciprocal move by the College authorities, and one professor, Horace Belshaw, accused O’Shea of victimising Lowry, citing ‘undue influence’ over the business dealings with the Executive. The matter came before the April Professorial Board meeting, where Belshaw was outgunned and O’Shea fully vindicated: ‘The Registrar . . . was invited to comment ... he pointed out that his system of keeping a diary made it easy to refute such charges as had been made; he suggested that Professors if confronted with similar charges, might not be in such a favourable positon’. 89 The meeting also upheld the suspension until the year’s end. Belshaw’s amendment, that Lowry be readmitted, but fined, was lost. Lowry was devastated by the news: ‘l’ve been bloody aimless most of the time since Xmas & down in the mouth occasionally. It’s those bloody Black-handed swine of the College Conservative clique. They’ve suspended me till the end of the year’. 90

This suspension in effect closed the first chapter in Lowry’s involvement in printing, as he was now forced to move outside the orbit of the College. Nevertheless, his endeavours continued. In May he established his first independent press, The Unicorn, and he worked alongside Mason who had set up The Spearhead Publishers. Indeed, Mason’s own collection, No New Thing: Poems 1924-1929, was the first book Lowry printed when out on his own. 91 His work on behalf of radical causes also continued with the printing of various broadsheets

for the freedom of speech rallies held during 1934 92 . for the freedom of speech rallies held during 1934 . For Lowry then, 1931-1933, were tumultuous and formative years, that left an indelible mark on him. With hindsight his actions and reactions during this period foreshadowed what later became his modi operandi. He began a love-hate relationship with the University that was to last until his death in 1963; he constantly schemed for bigger and better ventures, yet struggled to meet whatever commitments he had undertaken. But perhaps most important of all, he experimented time and time again with new and better ways of typographical expression.

The writer would like to acknowledge the financial assistance of the Sir Douglas Robb Memorial Fund

REFERENCES 1 Denis Glover in An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand , edited by A. H. McLintock (Wellington, 1966), v.2, p. 872. Glover was rewriting his own text. Twenty years earlier, in ‘Bob Lowry’s Books’, Book VIII (August 1946) [3l] he had written, ‘lf typography is a word that some of us now understand, the credit is Bob Lowry’s. That we have not only a more general interest in the appearance of printed matter, not only a few critics of typography but several zealous practitioners, is almost entirely due to the impetus provided by Lowry in the early thirties’. 2 The letters form part of the Glover papers in the Alexander Turnbull Library. See Denis Glover. Papers, 1928-1970. MS Papers 418. Alexander Turnbull Library. (Hereafter Glover Papers). 3 Lowry made this claim in a dodger for the ‘Sixth-form magazine’ that he printed and circulated in 1929. Glover Papers, Folder 1. Denis Glover’s story differs; La Verite was ‘an unofficial form magazine laboriously pencilled out . . . there was only one copy and that went the rounds’. Denis Glover, Hot Water Sailor (Wellington, 1962), p. 46. 4 Lowry to Glover, 21 July 1929, 25 February 1932. Glover Papers. Folder 2. It is likely that the Lowry family moved from Paeroa back to their farm at Hikutaia in June 1932. 5 Lowry to Glover, 2 May 1929. Glover Papers, Folder 1. 6 Lowry to Glover, 6 July 1929, 13 July 1929. Glover Papers. Folder 2. The initial ‘W’ is Dominus, and this face is also used extensively throughout Opuscule. 7 Lowry enrolled in Political Science, but this choice was ‘declined’ by Anderson, Professor of Philosophy, and he took Philosophy in its place. Lowry to Glover, 12 March 1931. Folder 4. 8 H. Mahon. Headmaster, quoted in a letter, Lowry to Glover, 8 February 1930. Glover Papers. Folder 3. It was a phrase that Lowry loved. 9 Lowry to Glover, 4 July 1931, 9 September 1931. Glover Papers. Folder 4. 10 Lowry to Glover, 3 May 1931. Glover Papers. Folder 4. 11 Auckland University College, Literary Club. Minutebook, [n.d.] University of Auckland Library. MSS & Archives E-5, pp. 56-58. 12 Lowry to Glover, 29 September 1931. Glover Papers. Folder 4. 13 Auckland University College. Dramatic Club. Minutebook, September 1930. University of Auckland Library, MSS & Archives E-22, pp. 51-52. 14 Auckland University College. Literary Club. Minutebook, 20 November 1931. University of Auckland Library, MSS & Archives E-5.

15 Lowry to Glover, 29 September 1931, 3 May 1931. Glover Papers. Folder 4. 16 R. A. K. Mason. Papers, 592 E, 1 January 1932. Hocken Library, University of Otago. Professor Anderson was Vice-President of the Dramatic Club. 17 Lowry to Glover, 9 March 1932. Glover Papers. Folder 5. 18 Allen Curnow, ‘Robert William Lowry 1912-1963’, in Experiments in New Zealand Bibliography by W. J. Cameron, Olive Johnson and Patricia Berguist (Lowry Room, Mount Pleasant Press, University of Auckland, 1964), n.p. 19 Keith Sinclair, A History of the University of Auckland (Auckland, 1983), p. 166. 20 R. A. K. Mason. Papers M.l 5928. Hocken Library, University of Otago. James Bertram made this statement in conversation with Keith Sinclair, tape transcript, 23 August 1977. I would like to thank Professor Sinclair for access to transcripts of taped interviews he conducted while researching the history of the University of Auckland.

21 Kiwi, an annual, was first published in 1905 as ‘the official organ of the Students’ Association’. It aimed to record College events and encourage literary talent. 22 Craccum, begun in 1927 as Auckland University College’s ‘fortnightly scrapbook’, was in financial trouble by the end of 1930. It was saved only by ‘a most generous offer from a friendly printer’ [Dawson Printing Company] and by adopting a new, tabloid format. 23 Lowry to Glover, 1 April 1932. Glover Papers. Folder 5. 24 Lowry to Glover, 1 April 1932. Glover Papers. Folder 5. 25 Auckland University College. Students’ Executive. Minutebook, 6 May 1932, p. 243. The magazines presumably included Craccum and Kiwi. This meeting, incidentally, was Bertram’s last as Secretary before he left for Oxford. 26 Auckland University College. Students’ Executive. Minutebook, 10 June 1932, p. 253. 27 Lowry to Glover, 26 June 1932. Glover Papers. Folder 1. (misfiled). 28 A. P. Postlewaite, Report of the Student Printing Press [to] the President and Executive Committee, Auckland University College Students’ Association, [November 1933]. The typescript Report is in the 1933 Correspondence files (H-Z) of the Registrar, Auckland University College. Postlewaite was Business Manager of the Students’ Association. 29 Elsie Locke to author, tape transcript, August 1979.

30 The printing of Phoenix was probably finished by the end of July (see Lowry to Glover, 24 July 1932. Glover Papers. Folder 5), while Kiwi 1932 took ‘three whole weeks of vacation’ i.e. until early September. Lowry to Glover, 13 September 1932. Glover Papers. Folder 5. 31 Lowry to Glover, 26 June 1932. Glover Papers. Folder 1. (misfiled). 32 Ron Holloway to Jean Bartlett, tape transcript, October 1976. The tape transcript is owned by Professor Sinclair. 33 Holloway, tape transcript. This was R. A. Singer’s The Years Go Round (Auckland, 1928), which was printed by Whitcombe & Tombs. 34 See A. Johnston, T. V. Gulliver; A Catalogue of his Graphic Art (unpublished M.A. thesis for Art History, University of Auckland, 1979). Thorp’s book was first published in 1919 and reprinted in 1928. Beatrice Warde said ‘lt was a turning point in my life —that book’. Beatrice Warde, ‘Some Notes on the British Typographic Reformation, 1919-1939’, in her Crystal Goblet: Sixteen Essays on Typography (London, 1959), p. 189. 35 R. W. Lowry. Papers, 1920-1963. University of Auckland Library, MSS & Archives A-194. 36 Brooke Crutchley in Stanley Morison, A Tally of Types (Cambridge, 1973), p. 7. 37 Lowry to Glover, 21 February 1931. Glover Papers. Folder 4. 38 Lowry to Glover, 18 October 1932, [October?] filed with 18 October 1932. Glover Papers. Folder 5.

39 Craccum, 6, no. 5 (22 September 1932), 8. Lowry signed himself ‘Garamond’. See also Auckland University College. Literary Club. Minutebook, 8 September 1932. University of Auckland Library, MSS & Archives E-5. 40 Lowry to the Chairman of the Professorial Board, 12 September 1932, in Auckland University College. Registrar’s Correspondence, 1932, A-D. 41 Lowry to Glover, 13 September 1932. Glover Papers. Folder 5. 42 Clippings from the Auckland Star, 13 September 1932, 18 October 1932, in Auckland University College. Scrapbooks of newspaper clippings . . . 1929-1952. University of Auckland Library, MSS & Archives E-3. 43 Lowry to the Chairman of the Finance Committee, 14 November 1932, in Auckland University College. Registrar’s Correspondence, 1932, A-D. 44 Acting Registrar, Auckland University College, to Lowry, 22 November 1932, in Auckland University College. Registrar’s Correspondence, 1932, A-P. 45 Lowry to Glover, 28 December 1932. Glover Papers. Folder 5. 46 Auckland University College. Students’ Executive. Minutebook, 23 December 1932, p. 284. 47 Said Truth, ‘[S]eldom indeed have the University dovecotes fluttered to such effect, rarely has a matter created such a sensation or provoked such heated controversy, turning the University into something very nearly akin to a Democratic Convention during an American presidential election’. N.Z. Truth 5 October 1932, p. 1.

48 See Auckland University College. Students’ Executive. Minutebook, 9 September 1932, p. 271. The controversy itself was well-documented at the time by F. de la Mare in Academic Freedom in New Zealand 1932-1934 (Auckland, 1934). De la Mare states that on 15 August the resolutions were put to Sir George Fowlds, President, by the student delegates themselves. 49 Lowry to Glover, 23 October 1931, 12 November 1931. Glover Papers. Folder 4. 50 R. A. K. Mason to [?] Watson, circa 7 July 1933. R. A. K. Mason. Papers. M.l 5928. Hocken Library, University of Otago. 51 Lowry to Glover, 26 June 1932. Glover Papers. Folder 1. (misfiled). 52 Lowry to Glover, 24 July 1932. Glover Papers. Folder 5. 53 Lowry to Glover, 13 September 1932. Glover Papers. Folder 5. 54 Lowry to Glover, 10 February 1933. Glover Papers. Folder 5. By March 1933 Lowry was commenting on Gill as well as Daniel Updike’s two-volumed Printing Types; Their History, Forms and (Cambridge, U.S.A., 1922). Lowry to Glover, 12 March 1933. Glover Papers. Folder 5. 55 Craccum, 11 May 1933, p. 3. 56 ‘Papers relating to Phoenix'. R. A. K. Mason. Papers M.l 5928, p. 3., Hocken Library, University of Otago. Mason mistakenly calls this the ‘fifth issue’. Glover had similar problems in Christchurch. Oriflamme; A Spasmodical, which he printed under the colophon of the Caxton Club had, by April, earned the wrath of the Students’ Executive there. It ‘contained matter of an objectionable nature’ and Glover was told to move his press from the College premises. Glover to Lowry, 3 May 1933. Glover Papers. Folder 12.

57 Barry Faville, ‘On Phoenix' in Kiwi 1958, p. 27. 58 E. P. Haslam to Lowry, 3 April 1933, 5 April 1933. Auckland University College. Students’ Executive. Correspondence file, 1933. 59 R. A. K. Mason. Papers M.l 5928. 60 Auckland University College. Students’ Executive. Minutebook, 3 March 1933, p. 285. 61 Lowry to Glover, 14 May 1933. Glover Papers. Folder 5. 62 Haslam to Lowry, 13 May 1933. 63 See Auckland University College. Students’ Executive. Minutebook, 17 March 1933, 9 June 1933; and Haslam to Lowry, 8 June 1933.

64 VZ. Truth, 31 May 1933, p. 1. 65 Martin Sullivan, Watch How You Go (London, 1975), p. 48. 66 ‘D.H.M’ [D. H. Munro?] in Craccum, 7, no. 1 (11 May 1933), 5. A later article claimed ‘that the ravings of two per cent, of our students in Phoenix do not represent the opinion of the great mass of students’. Craccum, 7, no. 2 (19 June 1933), 1. 67 Denis Glover, ‘Bob Lowry’s Books’, Book VIII (August 1946) [32]. 68 Secretary, Auckland University College to Lowry, 17 June 1933, in Auckland University College. Students’ Executive. Correspondence file, 1933. Registrar to Secretary, Auckland University College Students’ Executive, 21 June 1933, in Auckland University College. Registrar’s Correspondence, 1933, H-Z. See also Craccum, 7, no. 4 (7 August 1933), 2. 69 Secretary to Secretary of the Literary and Dramatic Clubs, 13 May 1933. Auckland University College. Students’ Executive. Correspondence file, 1933. 70 Auckland University College. Students’ Executive. Minutebook, 16 June 1933, p. 25. 71 Auckland University College. Literary Club. Minutebook, 22 June 1933. University of Auckland Library, MSS & Archives E-5, [n.p.] 72 Auckland University College. Students’ Executive, Minutebook, 16 June 1933, p. 25. 73 Auckland University College. Students’ Executive. Correspondence file, 30 June 1933. Mason enrolled, variously, in a B.A. and Diploma of Social Science between 1926 and 1931. He was not enrolled in 1933.

74 ‘Papers relating to Phoenix’. R. A. K. Mason. Papers. M.l 5928. 75 Auckland University College. Literary Club. Minutebook, 5 July 1933. Meeting of the Combined Literary and Dramatic Sub-Committees. University of Auckland Library, MSS & Archives E-5. 76 Broadsheet, To the Members of the Auckland District Court of Convocation, in Auckland University College. Scrapbooks of newspaper clippings . . . 1929-1952. University of Auckland Library, MSS & Archives E-3. 77 Phoenix, 2, no. 2 (June 1933), 31, 61. The exact date of this Phoenix appearing cannot be determined but it was most likely in the first week of July. It was reviewed in Craccum 7, no. 3 (12 July 1933), 4-5, and a letter to Mason, congratulating him on the ‘June Phoenixi, is also dated 12 July. Alfred Katz to R. A. K. Mason, 12 July 1933. R. A. K. Mason. Papers. 78 Sidney Scott, Douglasism or Communism? (Auckland, 1933), p. 10.

79 Attachments to letter, J. A. Gentiles, Receiver, to O’Shea, 1 November 1933. Auckland University College. Registrar’s Correspondence, 1933, H-Z. 80 R. A. K. Mason to Alfred Katz, 7 August 1933. R. A. K. Mason. Papers. 592 F. 81 See R. A. K. Mason. Papers. M.l 5928. There are three galleys for the intended issue, together with comments by Mason. 82 O’Shea to Secretary, Auckland University College Students’ Executive, 20 September 1933. Auckland University College. Students’ Executive. Correspondence file, 1933. 83 Secretary, Auckland University College Students’ Executive, to Lowry, 23 September 1933. Auckland University College. Students’ Executive. Correspondence file, 1933.

84 Lowry to Glover, 22 September 1933. Glover Papers. Folder 5. Elsie Farrelly (later Elsie Locke) states ‘Why did [Bob] “cut and run”? It was a favourite phrase of his. He had often threatened to do it when work and worries pressed down on him too hard. Literature, politics, formal studies, gregarious habits and the women in his life left him no leeway, so he threw the whole lot off his shoulders and grasped his freedom. Throughout that hitchhike he acted like a small boy released from after-school detention.’ Elsie Locke, Student At The Gates (Whitcoulls, 1981), p. 180. R. A. K. Mason confirms this impression: ‘He came to me and

said, rather shamedly, that he was leaving ... he said he could not face up to things’. R. A. K. Mason. Papers. M.l 5928 [p. 2] Hocken Library, University of Otago. 85 Auckland University College. Professorial Board. Minutebook, 25 October 1933, p. 82. 86 A. P. Postlewaite, Report of the Student Printing Press [to] the President and Executive Committee, Auckland University College Students’ Association [November 1933], pp. 2-3. 87 Denis Glover, Hot Water Sailor (Wellington, 1962), p. 101. 88 Lowry to Glover, n.d. [February 1934?]. Glover Papers. Folder 2 (misfiled). The philanthropic friend was Blackwood Paul. 89 Auckland University College. Professorial Board. Minutes, 9 April 1934, pp. 108-9. 90 Lowry to Glover, 20 May 1934. Glover Papers. Folder 2 (misfiled). 91 Glover complimented Lowry’s solution to hand-setting Mason’s verse in No New Thing : ‘there is a vivid use of large bold lower-case roman numerals at the head of each numbered poem, and the same number is used as a folio in square brackets at the tail. Mason’s verse, always hard to set changing as it does from the ultra short to full measure lines, is ranged most happily on the vertical axis thus provided’. Denis Glover, ‘Bob Lowry’s Books’, Book VIII (August 1946). 92 Lowry was arrested with Sid Scott at one of these Auckland rallies, and on 28 July, was convicted of‘inciting disorder’. He was put on probation for two years with the conditions that ‘he be not found out at night after 7 p.m. [. . . and that] his amusements and recreations be approved by the Probation Officer’.