Frank Beasley Medal
Frank Beasley
(1897 - 1976)
Photograph from UWA Archives 20501P ADB
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PHOTOGRAPH FROM UWA LAW SCHOOL |
Frank Reginald Beasley was educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford before moving to Western Australia in 1914. In 1915, he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force serving with the 11th Battalion at Gallipoli and in France. After being granted leave in 1919, he studied with the Council of Legal Education, London, and at Wadham College, Oxford, where he graduated with honours in jurisprudence. He returned to Australia and was demobilised in October 1920. |
From that time until his retirement in 1963, Professor Beasley undertook the usual intramural duties of a senior Professor, was President of the Staff Association between 1952 and 1954, and continued his involvement in adult education. |
Frank Beasley Medal
In 1927, the Senate of the University of Western Australia formally announced its decision to establish a Law School – made possible by strong support from the Barristers’ Board and the local legal profession, the beginning of the close link that has always existed between the profession and the Law School. On 26 September 1927, the University appointed Frank Beasley as the Law School’s first Professor. By 1 November, Beasley had arrived in Perth; the first Faculty Meeting was held on 25 November, and classes commenced in 1928.
Over the next few years, Beasley placed the Law School on a firm foundation. He was assisted by five visiting lecturers, but as the only full-time staff member he had to teach the remaining six subjects himself. In addition to running the Law School, he established the Blackstone Society as a communal organisation for the law students, played a full part in the life of the University on many fronts (from coaching the rowing eight to serving as Chair of the Professorial Board and Acting Vice-Chancellor), and was active in public life, broadcasting and lecturing and establishing the WA branch of the Australian Institute of International Affairs.
Teaching had to be suspended in 1942 and 1943 after Beasley, an experienced World War I army officer, was called up for full-time military service, but recommenced in 1944. In the post-war period, Beasley continued to build up the Law School: by the time of his retirement in 1963, he had completed no less than 37 years as Professor and Dean. By then he had managed to secure the appointment of some additional full-time staff members – though even in the year of his retirement there were still only four full-time staff, assisted by nine part-timers. In 1944, he persuaded the University to give the Law School a vacant wooden building in the north-west corner of the campus, but was always looking ahead to the time when Law might have a new purpose-built Law School, and in 1958 his blueprint for a new building (based on his experience of law schools in North America when on study leave) was accepted by Faculty. In 1962, just before his retirement, the University Grants Commission agreed to fund the new Law School, and Beasley’s successor, Douglas Payne, took up the initial concept and saw the project through to completion in 1967. Beasley established the Annual Law Review in 1948, and built up the Law Library, described in 1957 as ‘one of the finest working law libraries in this country’; his expertise was recognised on his retirement from UWA in 1963 when he was recruited by Professor David Derham to establish the law library of the new law school at Monash University.
At the time of the 75th anniversary in 2002, the Law School, led by Dean Bill Ford, decided to create a commemorative award to honour distinguished graduates who had made exceptional contributions to the law, the Law School and legal education. The award was to take the form of a medal named for the Law School’s founding professor – the Beasley Medal. The first two medals were presented on 9 May 2003, at a ceremony in the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery preceding a dinner in Winthrop Hall, to Sir Francis Burt (LLB 1940), former Chief Justice of Western Australia, and Sir Ronald Wilson (1949), WA’s first High Court Judge. During next few years, there were further presentations to John Toohey (1950) and Geoffrey Kennedy (1953); and at the 90th anniversary dinner on 1 September 2018, medals were presented to David Malcolm (1960) (posthumously), Robert French (1971), Wayne Martin (1974), Christine Wheeler (1980), Sue Gordon (2002) and long-serving staff member Professor Richard Harding. Though the original concept has now been slightly modified in light of the changing nature of the Law School over the past 50 years, the Beasley Medal remains, as always intended, the most important means by which the Law School publicly acknowledges and celebrates exceptional contribution and achievement on the part of its most distinguished graduates and scholars.
Medal recipients
- The Hon Sir Francis Burt AC KCMG KC
- The Hon Sir Ronald Wilson AC KBE CMG KC
- The Hon John Toohey AC KC
- The Hon Geoffrey Kennedy AO KC
- The Hon Robert French AC
- Sue Gordon AM
- Emeritus Professor Richard Harding
- The Hon David Malcolm AC KC
- The Hon Wayne Martin AC KC
- The Hon Christine Wheeler AO KC
- Emeritus Professor William Ford
- The Hon Malcolm McCusker AC CVO KC
- The Hon Neville Owen
- Enid Russell
- John Fiocco
- Peter Handford