The death has been reported of Dr Harry Medlin , a former Senior Deputy Chancellor of the University of Adelaide (1984-1997), who played a key part in getting Nobel Prize writer Patrick White’s play , The Ham Funeral, controversially rejected for the 1962 Festival of Arts by a conservative board of governors, presented in the Union Hall by the university’s Theatre Guild. Dr Medlin was chairman of the Theatre Guild at the time and the production was widely acclaimed ; White was so pleased , he entrusted the Theatre Guild with world premiere performances of his subsequent plays , The Season at Sarsaparilla (1962), and Night On Bald Mountain (1964).
A commando captured by the Japanese in East Timor , Medlin spent years in a POW camp and was debriefed by Army Intelligence Officer Harry Wesley-Smith for depositions for the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. The two Harrys became close friends for 40 years . In his position as Guidance Officer to ex- service students, Wesley-Smith encouraged Medlin to take a university course in l946 at Adelaide . Medlin became a highly regarded university teacher in the Department of Physics, and as an administrator. Between them, the two Harrys had a big impact on the university , Wesley-Smith taking great interest in overseas students in general and Asian students in particular... Said Dr Medlin : " We [ ex- service men and women] brought to university life a new dimension; we doubled the student population; we respected education not only for what it offered but also for its own sake; we did not necessarily respect many of its quaint practices; we turned the place upside down and in more ways than one. Without the wise advice of Harry Wesley-Smith, operating I am sure in both directions, the whole exercise could well have been a disaster. Both sides came to co-exist and to their mutual benefit. It was the greatest social upheaval to date in the history of Australian universities. Harry wrote a paper on those experiences, and that paper should be recovered, even if only because he established that the academic records of the ex-service students were significantly superior to those of their younger student colleagues; and there is a lesson in there yet to be comprehended and learnt by educators.”
In l984 , Dr Medlin delivered the eulogy at his comrade’s funeral. He recalled that in l980 Dr Wesley-Smith chose to speak on the subject of "The educated person,"stressing the importance of universities for the good health of the community. He also affirmed his unwavering support of the thesis that while a university is accountable to the community it must nevertheless be free to conduct its own affairs in the way it judges to be best. Dr Wesley-Smith had then cited Bertrand Russell who said the qualities of "a reasonable scepticism", "rationality", "modesty", and "fairmindedness" were marks of an educated person. This intellectual prowess, he said , had to be coupled with the need for integrity, compassion and a social conscience.
A Vietnamese student barely able to express himself in English told Dr Medlin he was concerned about his brother who had been detained in Malaysia . Medlin promptly contacted the Australian Minister for Immigration , about to visit Malaysia at the time, and secured his release in a short space of time, enabling him to come to Australia .
In 2010 , Dr Medlin took part in a protest at the University of Adelaide over the plan to demolish the Union Hall , where White's plays had been performed, to make way for a $77million science precinct, saying the planned destruction was a disgrace, more of a corporate than a collegiate decision . Over the years, Dr Medlin had been a strong supporter of East Timor and amassed a large library dealing with Asia.
