New South Wales Universities

Australia New South Wales  Universities

The first university in Australia was established in 1850: The University of Sydney. After World War II, a number of further universities were established in Sydney and regional centres: New South Wales (1949), New England (1954), Macquarie (1963), Newcastle (1965). Although the universities were chartered under state law, by the end of the 1950s the Commonwealth had effectively created a national system. In 1973 the Commonwealth took over funding of universities. In 1988 a number of tertiary institutions were elevated to the status of university but accompanied by a programme of amalgamations. Some of the amalgamations failed leading to further restructuring of the sector in 1993.

Family History Research
Until the post World War II period, the University was the preserve of the few and mainly focussed on training the professions. However, if you are searching for an ancestor who was a member of the professions and cannot find a suitable source for that profession, their name may appear in the list of graduates which was produced as part of the University Calendar until the 1950s.

The daily newspapers printed lists of matriculants, scholarship winners, examination results including prize-winners. These may be searched, especially in The Sydney Morning Herald at the digital Australian newspaper archive of the National Library of Australia.

To establish when an ancestor was at University, a search of alumni may prove useful. The University of Sydney has a very useful online search tool hidden beneath a Latin phrase alumni sidniensis: an alumni search for graduates of the University of Sydney from 1857 to 1980.

Universities have also chronicled their daily life in their own publications as well as in souvenir programmes published for ceremonies of conferral of degrees. A number of universities have digitised these and published them online through either their library or archives.

Since 1929, each university has produced a semi-official student newspaper which will sometimes add some colour and life to an ancestor's time as a student.

The University of Sydney
The oldest Australian university constituted by 1850 legislation and taking its first students in 1852. The university grew slowly in its first decades but increased with reforms in secondary education which produced more matriculants, both men and women, to the University. The University Calendar lists academic staff for the year and, for the early years, a full list of all graduates from 1857.


 * Alumni search for graduates of the University of Sydney from 1857 to 1980.
 * The University of Sydney Calendar Archive
 * University of Sydney Archives
 * Honi Soit the student newspaper of the University of Sydney, first published in 1929.

The University of New South Wales
Formed as the New South Wales University of Technology (1949) it was renamed The University of New South Wales in 1958 as it evolved from a science and technology university into a generalist one.


 * University of New South Wales Archives

UNE: University of New England
Began in 1938 as the New England University College, University of Sydney at Armidale. From 1954, established as the University of New England. In 1989, joined with campuses of certain colleges to form a "network" which was later dissolved so as to return the university to its former status.


 * Alumni search
 * UNE and Regional Archives holds archives of the university but also a rich collection of records relating to the New England region.

Macquarie University
Established as a third university for Sydney in 1964.


 * Records and Archives Services

The University of Newcastle Australia
Began life in 1951 as the Newcastle University College of the then University of Technology New South Wales, now University of New South Wales. Incorporated at the University of Newcastle from 1965.

Cultural Collections incorporating the University Archives, Rare Books and Special Collections. In addition to being the repository for the university archives, it hosts a large collection of materials from Newcastle and the Hunter Valley region of interest to family and local historians.

University of Technology, Sydney
The University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) was constituted as such in 1988 but can trace its origins back to the 19th Century: the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts formed the Workingman's College which was acquired by the colonial government to form the Sydney Technical College in 1878 and, in 1969, the New South Wales Institute of Technology (NSWIT) was created out of part of this body which acquired the status of a university. NSWIT was reconstituted as the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) in 1988.


 * Accessing UTS archives


 * University of Wollongong Archives
 * Charles Sturt University Archives