To celebrate the 150^th anniversary of Trinity College, each month this year we are going to dive into the time machine and share stories and deliberations of our past students, as recorded in our annual student publication, the Fleur de Lys.

In this month’s Fleur de Lys flashback we share an update from Trinity's Dialectic Society in 1985.

Founded in 1877, the Dialectic Society is one of Trinity's longstanding committees, and, in fact, is thought to be the oldest collegiate society in Australia.

The club encourages oratory and literary culture through intercollegiate and comedy debates, public speaking and an essay writing competition.

But that's to put it simply. As Angus Trumble wrote in 1985:

Though the debates are always taken seriously, sometimes the topics are not so serious. Exhibit A: 1985.

Here's Angus's update:

Among the many letters Arthur (see 'Artie' in this article) relentlessly poured into the Secretary of the Dialectic Society's pigeon hole during 1985 were communications from many distinguished men and women, from as far away as Sydney and London, refusing to speak before the College.

The Hon Steve Crabb, Dame Leonie Kramer, Phillip Adams, Senator Susan Ryan, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Barry Humphries, and the Prince and Princess of Wales were all busy and unable to attend on that night.

An unseasonable cloud-burst diverted the Society's Orientation Week stroll in the Botanical Gardens to the squalor of the (post-afternoon tea) Cripps Room. The Secretary was accused of stacking the trivia quiz with theological questions.

From the beginning it seemed, therefore, that the work of the 1985 committee was ill-fated.

Laughing in the face of adversity, however, the Society heard two very funny debates in first term, the first between senior gents and freshers and the second between the Senior and Junior Common Rooms in which Fr Joseph-Maria Waddell D.G.S. hung vulture-like over the podium and spoke on the metaphysics of the pudding.

Poetry evenings were revived and three were held on Sunday evenings throughout the year. At one of these, Michael Gronow delivered a particularly moving account of The Wanderer in Anglo-Saxon dialect. Tears rolled down the cheeks of all present.

A series of debates modelled on the Oxford Union model were arranged and were well attended.

Unfortunately, Trinity upheld one of its many longstanding traditions, reaching the final of the debating only to be defeated by the rabble, this time St Hilda's.