About Senate
Senate history – 1849 - 1852
- 1849: William Charles Wentworth advocated a university for Sydney
- 1850: Establishment of the University and of Senate
- 1851: First meetings of Senate
- 1852: Inauguration ceremony for the University of Sydney, and its first students and lectures
- 1860 - the present
Photographs on this page are from the University of Sydney Archives, unless otherwise attributed.
1849
William Charles Wentworth advocated a university for Sydney in a speech to Parliament, 6 September 1849
On 4 September 1849, William Charles Wentworth presented a petition to the Legislative Council from a majority of the proprietors of the Sydney College praying for the adoption of a measure to convert the College into a University.
– Read what happened.
1850
An Act to Incorporate and Endow the University of Sydney, 1 October 1850
The University was incorporated by an Act of the Legislature of New South Wales - the Act to Encorporate and Endow the University of Sydney - on 1 October 1850 and was the first university to be established in Australasia. The University of Sydney was established in 1850 to promote useful knowledge and to encourage the residents of New South Wales to pursue a regular course of liberal education.
– View the Act to Encorporate and Endow the University of Sydney
The government of the University is provided for by the appointment of a Senate of Sixteen Fellows (four of whom may be clergymen). A Provost and Vice-Provost are to be chosen by the fellows out of their own body. Vacancies in the Senate are to be filled up by the remaining fellows, until there are one hundred graduates entitled as Masters of Arts, &c, to vote, when the vacancies as they occur will be filled up by the graduates themselves, duly convened in convocation.
In addition to the entire management of the educational and financial affairs of the University, the Senate has power to make by-laws as to discipline, degrees, honours, &c, which when duly approved of by the Governor and Executive Council, have the force of law. It has also authority to confer the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts, and Bachelor and Doctor of Laws and Medicine.
(From the Introduction to the first University Calendar (1852-53))
A Proclamation appointing the original Senate, 24 December 1850
A Proclamation by His Excellency Sir Charles Augustus Fitz Roy, Knight Companion of the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order, Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of the Territory of New South Wales, dated 24 December 1850, announced the appointment of the original Senate.
The Proclamation was published in the New South Wales Government Gazette dated 24 December 1850:
The original Gazette supplement 24 December 1850, University of Sydney Archives.
The original sixteen Fellows of Senate
The original sixteen Fellows of Senate are listed below. The brief descriptions for each come from a speech by Sir Charles Bickerton Blackburn at the Special Meeting of Senate held on 5 February 1951 to celebrate the centenary of the first Senate meeting.
– Read about the original 16 Fellows of Senate.
Sir Charles' speech included the following comments about the original Fellows of Senate:
To anyone at all familiar with the history of New South Wales in the middle of the last century the list is a most impressive one, and is an indication of the great importance His Excellency obviously attached to insuring that the new University would be established on sound foundations. On the list are the names of many of those who were playing the leading parts in the political and industrial life of the country at that vital period, when it was on the eve of passing from Dominion status to the stature of a virtually self-governing unit of the empire, and we can well believe that it was with considerable reluctance that some of them, so immersed in urgent national problems, shouldered new responsibilities.
As the list has been traversed it will not have passed unnoticed that on it are names of families conspicuous for the continuity of their national service since the days of their founders. Wentworths, Darvalls, Macarthur-Onslows, and Merewethers are well known to have many claims for public recognition other than their proud ancestry. It is not so well known that a grandson and great-grandson of the Reverend Boyce became professors of philosophy in Melbourne; that the eldest son of Sir Stuart Donaldson was Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge Universitv; that another son was the first Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, while a third son became Sir Hay Donaldson, a famous engineer, who went down with Kitchener in the First Great War; also that the eldest son of Sir Charles Nicholson became a famous ecclesiastical architect, and that the present holder of the title is a noted musician.
1851
1st Meeting of Senate, 3 February 1851
The first meeting of Fellows of Senate took place in the Chambers of the Speaker of the Legislative Council on 3 February 1851 at 12 o’clock noon and was attended by; Boyce, Donaldson, Davis, Merewether, Nicholson, O’Brien, Plunkett, Purves, Therry, Deas-Thomson and Wentworth. The main business of the meeting was to determine the agenda for the next meeting. The meeting was then adjourned until 3 March 1851.
– Read the full minutes of the first meeting.
– Read comments and information by Sir Charles Bickerton Blackburn about this first meeting.
Part of the original minutes of the first meeting, University of Sydney Archives.
2nd Meeting of Senate, 3 March 1851
At the 2nd Meeting of Senate on 3 March 1851, it was determined:
1. That of the period of appointment for the Provost would be three years from the date of election.
2. That the election of Provost be postponed until the next meeting.
3. That Sir Charles Nicholson be elected Vice-Provost.
4. That the Office of Secretary to Senate be established to transact the general business of the Senate and that a Secretary be appointed at the next meeting of Senate at a salary of one hundred and fifty pounds per annum.
5. That a committee comprising the Vice-Provost, Davis and Merewether be formed to investigate a “device for a Corporate Seal”.
6. That a committee comprising the Vice-Provost, Wentworth, Davis and Boyce be formed to prepare By-laws for consideration by Senate.
7. That a committee comprising Deas-Thomson and Donaldson be formed to consider a system of financial management.
8. That a committee comprising the Vice-Provost, Wentworth, Therry and O’Brien be formed to enter into negotiations over the possible leasing of the Sydney College buildings for the use of the University.
Part of the original minutes of the second meeting, University of Sydney Archives.
3rd Meeting of Senate, 17 March 1851
The decisions made at this meeting included the following:
1. Edward Hamilton was appointed to the Office of Provost of the University.
2. Six applications for the position of Secretary were considered and Richard Greenup appointed.
3. The trustees of the Sydney College agreed to lease the buildings to the University on condition that Senate expend one hundred pounds per annum on necessary repairs. The decision to take up this offer was deferred until the condition of the buildings was assessed.
4th Meeting of Senate, 24 March 1851
The decisions made at this meeting included the following:
1. The Government Architect, Mr Edmund Blackett, reported on the condition of the Sydney College buildings and considered that the buildings were poorly constructed, that the walls were bulging and that “substantial repair would occasion a total re-building of the premises”. It was proposed, and passed, that the Sydney College buildings be taken for a term of two years under the conditions discussed.
2. That a room be provided in the Sydney College for meetings of Senate.
3. That Senate meet on the first Monday in every month at noon with meetings to be adjourned or Special Meetings called as required.
4. That the Secretary provide an agenda by post at least seven days prior to Senate meetings.
5. That Fellows of Senate be required to give at least nine days notice of any motions and that all motions be recorded in a Notice of Motion book.
5th Meeting of Senate, 10 April 1851
This and many subsequent meetings were held at Sydney College.
1. Decisions were made regarding the appointment of Professors and lecturers and the faculties. Initially there were to be three disciplines:
(a) Greek and Latin languages with Greek and Roman history. There was to be one Professor and one Lecturer in this Faculty with the Professor of Classics to be the Principal of the College at an annual salary of £600.
(b) Mathematics, pure and mixed, with one Professor and one Lecturer, the Professor to receive a salary of £500.
(c) Chemistry and experimental philosophy, with one Professor at a salary of £300.
2. All professors and lecturers to receive £100 accommodation allowance until residential accommodation could be provided.
3. Decisions were also made about the dates and lengths of terms and about the admission of students.
4. The post of Registrar was to be held initially by the University Secretary.
Further meetings of Senate in 1851
A total of seventeen meetings were called in 1851 and Senate met 12 times. Five meetings were inquorate and were cancelled.
Attendance at Senate meetings in 1851
No Fellows attended all meetings although the Rt Rev Bishop Davis and Sir Charles Nicholson attended 16 of the 17. Alfred Denison attended only one meeting and the Rev Purvis two.
1852
Inauguration ceremony for the University of Sydney, followed by the first students and lectures
An inauguration ceremony for the University of Sydney was held on 11 October 1852 in the Hall of the former Sydney College. Vice-Provost Sir Charles Nicholson delivered the inaugural address.
A wood engraving of the inauguration ceremony in the "Illustrated London News", 29 January 1853, University of Sydney Archives.
Colourised version of the wood engraving of the inauguration ceremony in the "Illustrated London News", 29 January 1853. The colouring is not contemporary, (nla.pic-an8416192, National Library of Australia).
One hundred years ago, on the 11th October, 1852, the Inauguration Ceremony held that day in the big schoolroom of what is now the Sydney Grammar School, marked the birth of the Sydney University, the first university in the southern hemisphere ...
Early in October, 1852, the first matriculation examination was held, and 234 candidates succeeded in satisfying the examiners. The standard may not seem to have been a very high one, as all that was called for was a moderate knowledge of the classics, both Greek and Latin, such as was expected of every educated man in those days, some arithmetic, algebra as far as simple equations and the first book of Euclid. With these 24 students, a professorial staff of three (the Rev. Dr. Woolley, Principal and Professor of Classics; Professor Pell, Professor of Mathematics; and Dr. John Smith, Professor of Chemistry and Experimental Philosophy), a Registrar, and, I suppose, some small additional working staff, this University commenced to function after the Inauguration Ceremony on the 11th October, 1852. That was the Ceremony of which I spoke earlier, held in the big schoolroom of the Sydney Grammar School, which marked the foundation of this, the first, and now the largest, University in the southern hemisphere. The speeches on that occasion were delivered by Sir Charles Nicholson, who had been appointed as Vice-Provost, and by Dr. Woolley, with a dignity and an eloquence which I cannot attempt to emulate. The whole spirit of those speeches was one of sanguine expectation and enthusiasm. They voiced the confident hope that this University would be for the people of this land an "everlasting inheritance" and that when this colony achieved the status of a nation, this University would take its place amongst the great schools of learning of the world. We may be well assured that they would feel that their hopes had not been falsified were they to see the University today.
(From the Centenary Oration delivered by The Honourable K W Street on 28 August 1952)