Energy usage is increasingly a concern for all of us. At Ormond, heating and light have come from a range of sources over its history, from burning gas to burning chimneys. 

In 1960, The Ormond Chronicle reported wittily that a highlight of the year was one student’s “magnificent response to the Master’s appeal for economy in the use of firewood, in burning his chimney instead.” Chimney fires were once a regular occurrence at Ormond. This may explain the decades-old myth that the College’s oldest buildings are the most flammable structures in Melbourne. This is a myth.

Open fires like the one which got out of hand were the sole source of heating in College for its first 90 years. The supply of firewood was therefore a key concern of students, to the point that deliveries were reported in the University’s student magazine. Fireplaces however existed only in shared study rooms and offices. Bedrooms, bathrooms, library and corridors were unheated. Big black kettles for making tea were ubiquitous and there were rumours of toast.

Students had to chop and carry their own from the communal pile, in later years using a small goods lift to get it upstairs.

A student studies in Main Building in the early 20th century, tea kettle at the ready.

 A student at the College woodpile around 1960. Students had to chop their own wood and transport it to their room. 

In the late 1960s the College installed the current hydronic heating. This is centrally activated for the whole college each autumn on order of the Master, in an annual ritual known as the Declaration of Winter.

Lighting has also come a long way since students studied by candlelight in our early decades. For a time in the early 20th century the College was lit by gas lamps connected by cumbersome pipes, before electric lighting arrived. 

Cumbersome piped-gas lighting enables a game of billiards around 1900.

Gas lighting in a student study.

Heating is also central to the story of an Ormond stalwart, George Mounsey, who came to Ormond to tend its coal-burning hot water system in the mid 1950s. George remained at College for 65 years, and becoame a much loved fixture around the grounds. Read George’s story here.

Current Ormondians are lucky to live an environment where rooms are cosy and bathrooms and offices are rarely as chilly as they would once have been.

Share your Ormond story

Every Ormondian has their own unique experience of College life, and their own story to tell. What Ormond moment stands out in your memory? Whether on the sporting field or the stage, in the JCR, Dining Hall or on Picken Lawn, share your favourite story of life at Ormond College.