Fred Alexander

Historian and adult education and arts administrator, Fred Alexander, was born in Melbourne. Educated in Melbourne, at Trinity College, Melbourne University he switched from law to arts majoring in history before taking up a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford followed by a brief interlude in Europe, an attachment to the League of Nations in Geneva and to the Australian External Affairs Department in Washington, USA. He became the inaugural Head of the History Department in 1931 at the University of Western Australia and Professor of History in 1948.

From 1941, he also held the joint positions of Director of the Adult Education Board (AEB) and Major in Charge of Army Education at Western Command. An energetic man with a sharp intellect, shock of greying hair, lover of music, drama and the visual arts, Fred also had a keen interest in the development of UWA.

He gained experience and knowledge as a Rhodes Travelling Fellow in Europe (1932 to 1933), a Rockefeller Fellow in the USA (1939 to 1940) worked at universities in the USA, Canada, India and South Africa. At UWA he was Dean of the Faculty of Arts (1934 to 1937, 1952 to 1954, and July 1962) Chairman of the Professorial Board 1954 to 1955), and a member and chair of numerous advisory committees. Current affairs and modern history were his chosen disciplines; his publications, included his monumental UWA Golden Jubilee, Campus at Crawley. His students and far flung adult education groups remained his top priorities. The Festival of Perth emerged from the AEB’s community arts programs, Alexander launched the first Festival in February 1953

Photograph from UWA Archives 2728P Alexander, F Campus at Crawley: a narrative and critical appreciation of the first fifty years of the University of Western Australia Melbourne 1963; Alexander, F Adult Education in Australia: an historian’s point of view Melbourne 1959