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The College Colours

Probably those who selected the first colours adopted by what was then called the Victoria College Students' Society would as lief their names were forgotten in view of the short life those colours enjoyed (?) and the uncomplimentary remarks made about them not only by students but by the public generally—not forgetting small boys in the streets.

Only a very few of the braver spirits, men and women, could be found patriotic enough in the years 1899 and 1900 to sink their personal feelings in the matter and appear publicly with the huge mustard-colour letters "V.C." woven into their chocolate hat-bands! The public on its part greeted these students of the infant college with mingled amazement and amusement, and by the year 1901 the colours were as dead as the moa.

Then came the formation of the men's hockey club, and the choice of a playing uniform necessarily made the question of colours a practical one. As a consequence, a general meeting of students held on the 11th June, 1901, voted for dark maroon and pale blue. New hat-bands were accordingly ordered, the band being a two-inch one, with strips of pale blue one-eighth inch wide bordering the central portion of dark maroon.. The hockey players wore light blue jerseys with a broad band of dark maroon crossing over the right shoulder and under the left arm.

These colours were certainly better than the previous ones and they enjoyed a greater share of popularity. To the hockey players at any rate they had a very definite meaning and they played their little part in creating a really fine team spirit in the College.

But, alas, though many women students wore the new hatbands, there were many who insisted that dark maroon and pale-blue were impossible for their complexions. When, therefore, a womens' hockey team was formed at V.C., the colours question became once more a burning one. And there was at least one man student (a fine hockey player too) who sympathised with the women in their protestations. That man was George S. Prouse, who was influenced in his views by a very distinguished friend, the singer Madame Antonia Dolores. When Prouse, converted by Madame's arguments against the retention of dark maroon and pale blue, asked if she could suggest new colours, she waved her hand towards the glorious blaze of golden broom against the dark green background of the Tinakori hills. "One cannot improve on Nature," she said. From that time Prouse championed the green and gold and at a famous general meeting of students held on the 27th October, 1903, he carried the day. Thus did olive green and old gold become the college colours, in spite of A. H. Johnstone's vigorous waving of an old hockey jersey in denunciation of what he convulsed the meeting by calling "the Irish compromise"-... the wearing of the green with the orange!

George F. Dixon.