Mervyn Davis worked for six years to bring together landscape architects from all states. As a result of her advocacy and strategic actions, the first Council for the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects was formed in 1966. Mervyn had also ensured that the new Institute was linked internationally and continued her efforts to improve the education avaiable to the profession.

AILA recognised her enormous contribution to the Institute, to the profession and to education by awarding her the first AILA Fellowship.

---

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MERVYN DAVIS
a brilliant strategist and advocate for landscape architecture

originally published Landscape Australia 1/86 Page 57-58

WITH A QUICK SMILE expressing a great sense of achievement and with a hint of laughter in her voice, Mervyn said, ‘Marg, round one, now for the next’. Thirty five people from Australia wide had just elected and commissioned an interim Committee with State representatives to prepare a report on education and employment, as well as the formation of a professional organisation to promote landscape design in Australia. As the catalyst, Mervyn Twynam Davis M.B.E., a brilliant strategist and advocate for landscape architecture, had for six years worked to contact and bring these people together. Her enthusiasm brought Jean Verschuer overland by train from Perth, Noel Lothian from Adelaide and Eric Hammond from Melbourne to the first informal meeting, held under the auspices of the Australian Planning Institute Convention at the Hotel Rex, Canberra on 13 November 1963. The meeting, chaired by the Dean of Architecture of the University of Western Australia, Gordon Stephenson, set the scene for the future development of the profession in Australia and highlighted Mervyn’s unique contribution to the founding of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects.

Mervyn had always wanted to be a landscape architect, so it was not surprising that she worked diligently to become one, first as a jobbing gardener to learn the trade, then in 1956-7 as a postgraduate student at King’s College, Durham University under Professor Brian Hackett. To further the profession while studying, Mervyn applied to the Grand Council of the International Federation of Landscape Architects to become an individual member of the Council. In 1959, she was appointed a joint member with John Oldham of Perth. Their goal as individual members was to establish an Australian organisation.

For the next ten years, Mervyn worked to achieve this goal, first by personal contact, then after the first national meeting in Canberra, through the administrative framework of the Australian Planning Institute, as an affiliate member. Mervyn acted as the link between the landscape group and the Institute. So, for the next six years, landscape meetings were scheduled as part of the Planning Institute’s Conventions in Canberra, Adelaide, Perth, Sydney and Melbourne. This provided the opportunity for regular annual meetings to take place. As the projected numbers of landscape architects were small, discussions took place with the Institute’s Council concerning the possibility of establishing a membership category for landscape architects. Fortunately, at the second meeting in Adelaide on 29 August 1964, after much spirited discussion the meeting resolved that the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects be established. There was a provisional Executive Council of nine members with one from each State, five of whom were to be practising landscape architects. Mervyn, as a member of this Council and the previous steering committee was concerned with education, employment and establishing the criteria for corporate membership of the proposed Institute. She became a foundation member at the inaugural meeting on 25 August 1966 and served on the First Interim Council.

The following year both Mervyn and John resigned as individual members of the International Federation of Landscape Architects, as their goal had been achieved, and nominated the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects for membership. To mark the moves to officially register the Institute in Queensland, the only State at that time to recognise the term landscape architect, and to honour her unique contribution, Mervyn was elected the first Fellow of the Institute. The following year the Institute’s registration was confirmed at the Melbourne Conference on 14 March 1970.

Prior to the formation of the Australian Institute, a talented network of mostly self-taught people were successfully operating as landscape designers. For more than a century Australian design philosophy was evolving through the work of Thomas Shepherd, William Guilfoyle, Carl Bogue Luffman and more recently Walter Burley Griffin, Edna Walling, Ellis Stones, Glen Wilson, Gordon Ford and Alistair Knox. These people set the scene for the profession to grow and flourish during the environmental movement of the last twenty years.

In Melbourne, where Mervyn was born and worked, she was influenced by a group of people at a time when they were making a significant contribution to landscape design. Edna Walling began her professional career, which spanned more than fifty years, in 1920. Within four years, Edna had linked up with Eric Hammond to create some of the most beautiful gardens in Victoria. Six years later, she told Ellis Stones to take up landscape design. As one of the first group of women students to graduate from Burnley Horticultural College, Edna Walling (1916) joined a group of enthusiastic women designers at a time when they charged one pound ($2) per design plus 10% of the cost of plants. This group including Olive Mellor (1914) and Emily Gibson (1915) set the scene for Mervyn’s work. Emily Gibson was to later provide the educational link for many Burnley students to go to study at King’s college, Durham University. After studying at Burnley, Emily worked in the office of Mr and Mrs Walter Burley Griffin and lectured in landscape design at Burnley, before going to work as an apprentice in the office of Messrs Milner, Son and White, Landscape Architects, in Victoria Street, London, at about the same time as Dame Sylvia Crowe.

The principal Edward White was the first president of the British Institute of Landscape Architects (1929). Some sixteen years later, Mervyn was to become part of another influential group of designers including Hilda Kirkhope, Nerine Chisholm, Hilda Dance, John Stevens, Grace Fraser and Beryl Mann. In 1945, Mervyn undertook a CRTS Course at Burnley and graduated dux of a class which included Kevin Heinze, Tony Fetherstone and Bill Nicholls. For the next ten years, she worked as a jobbing gardener, designer and technical assistant in the herbarium at both the Melbourne and Adelaide Botanic Gardens. These experiences gave Mervyn an extensive and remarkable knowledge of plants.

At this time courses in landscape design were being established at University College, London and King’s College, Durham University. Mrs Gibson began to encourage her students to enrol in these and so started a link between Australia and England. During the 5Os Erica Ball ,Joan Kilby Mervyn Davis, Margaret Hendry, Eleanor McClelland and Susan Marks studied at King’s. Similar moves were taking place in other cities. Richard Clough studied at University College, London, under Peter Youngman and became an Associate of the Institute of Landscape Architects in 1955. Peter Spooner from the University of New South Wales won the Byera Hadley travelling scholarship and studied under Brian Hackett at King’s College (1955-6), the year prior to Mervyn; Allan Correy followed the year later. Malcolm Bunzli and George Williams from Brisbane joined the team, while Lindsey Robertson from Sydney undertook a course in the United States. These and many of the core of people working in the profession formed the initial group that Mervyn approached to support the formation of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects, and they acted as committee and Council members.

In each State there were resident groups of designers; in Perth: John Oldham, Robert Hart, Jean Verschuer, Marion Blackwell; Adelaide: Gavin Walkley, Stefan Rohozinski; Melbourne: John Stevens, Grace Fraser, Glen Wilson, Gordon Ford and many more; Sydney: Peter Spooner, Warwick Watson, Dennis Winston, Bruce Mackenzie, to identify a few; Brisbane: Harry Oakman, Alan Wilson, George Trapnell, Arne Fink and Barbara Van den Broek. These people provided the back-up support for the Institute’s early initiatives in the promotion of education and employment.

As education was the first priority, Mervyn was associated with the first series of annual extension lectures on landscape design conducted at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, starting in 1961 under John Duncan, the principal, and she prepared the first landscape design and history course. She specialised in history, and paid attention to the early development of the profession. Much of this work is yet to be published, including her public lectures to the Sydney Garden Club and the Victorian Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects. Other people were also active from the mid 5Os, when John and Ray Oldham introduced a series of illustrated talks at the University of Western Australia’s summer school and Adult Education programmes. In 1963 Peter Spooner organised a ten lecture extension course and followed this with a postgraduate Diploma Course. By this time both the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and the University of New South Wales had established continuing programmes of education, which later led to full-time undergraduate courses. These have been added to, until today there are seven educational institutions conducting courses in landscape architecture and related studies.

Mervyn followed others into the public work sector. John Oldham was employed in the early 5Os by the Snowy Mountains Electricity Authority and later the Western Australian Government. Richard Clough in 1959 became the first landscape architect to be employed by the National Capital Development Commission. Mervyn was, however, the first to be employed by the Commonwealth Department of Works and to work throughout Australia and New Guinea. Her works were wide-ranging and included the major airports in Melbourne, Perth, Launceston, Hobart and Canberra, HMAS Stirling Naval Depot at Garden Island in Cockburn Sound (off W.A. coast), RAAF Base Naval Sports Complex at Randwick, Dockyards at Williamstown, RAAF Base at East Sale, Reserve Banks in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, Broadmeadows Army Establishment and many more. It was ironical that at this stage in the development of the profession Mervyn was employed as a Senior Technical Officer, acting as the only landscape architect providing consultant services to Regional and Client Departments.

Mervyn’s contribution was many-sided but was always directed to improving the environment. This was recognised at the 50th National Conference of the Royal Australian Institute of Parks and Recreation on 28 October 1977, when she was elected a Fellow. The American Institute of Parks and Recreation also honoured her with a Fellowship the same year. Her greatest achievements were acknowledged in 1980, when Mervyn was awarded an M.B.E. for her contribution to the community and the profession. Mervyn would not have been able to set the scene for others to follow so successfully without the help of a close friend and associate Daphne Pearson, who shared her interest in horticulture and love of plants. As the profession moves with confidence out of the pioneer phase into the development phase, it is timely to honour Mervyn’s contribution and commitment to the profession in Australia.

MARGARET HENDRY

(Mervyn died in 1985)