Kingwood College was one of the residential colleges affiliated with the University of Western Australia. Originally established by the Methodist Church, the College had in recent years been run by the Uniting Church. Kingswood amalgamated with St Columba College (another Uniting Church college) in 2000, to form Trinity Residential College. Kingswood experienced nearly forty years of existence prior to its amalgamation. However its history began as far back as 1913, when the concept of a Methodist College at the infant University of Western Australia was raised at the annual Western Australian Conference of the Methodist Church.
This thesis examines the history of Kingswood College, including the events leading up to its foundation and the years until amalgamation with St Columba College. It follows the development of Kingswood College in terms of the impact of massification, managerialism and marketing, along with the endeavour to establish a sense of commensality, or belonging, among its members. These factors help explain the ability of the College as an institution to adapt to social, academic and economic changes throughout a period of almost 40 years. Further, it will be seen that these changes often challenged the traditions brought to the College as a result of its background within the Methodist Church and the approach taken by the church to the provision of services to university students
