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Stella Aurorae: Establishing Kwazulu-Natal's First University

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Stella Aurorae: Establishing Kwazulu-Natal's First University Stella Aurorae: Establishing KwaZulu-Natal’s First University The early quest for university it might develop into a ‘young men’s uni- education versity’. By the 1850s there were already KwaZulu-Natal’s first fully-fledged uni- more than 500 such Institutes in Britain, versity, the University of Natal, was originating in Glasgow for the purpose established sixty years ago, on 15 March of providing working men with part-time 1949. The Natal University College from adult education. Like so many of them, which it developed came into existence a their Durban counterpart became no more century ago, on 11 December 1909. Such than a literary, recreational and social club an institution had first been envisaged before its subsequent closure. It did, how- as early as the mid-nineteenth century, ever, provide the basis for the city’s first though from the beginning, given the co- public library.1 lonial time and place, the intention was to In 1858 the more established and afflu- advance white (and initially male) educa- ent Cape Colony took the first meaningful tion. The issue of contention was where step towards the creation of a university the university should be sited – in Durban in southern Africa when it set up a Board or Pietermaritzburg. In September 1853 a of Public Examiners. Its function was to group of prominent citizens launched the examine and issue certificates to candi- Durban Mechanics’ Institute and, within dates prepared by secondary schools in three years, there were expectations that the fields of Literature and Science, Law 65 Natalia 39 (2009), Bill Guest pp. 65 – 78 Natalia - Copyright © Natal Society Foundation 2010 Stella Aurorae: Establishing KwaZulu-Natal’s First University Main Building, NUC, Pietermaritzburg and Jurisprudence, and in Land Surveying, ucation but the Colony’s money-conscious Engineering and Navigation. This was fol- white elected representatives rejected the lowed in 1873 by the establishment of the proposal as premature. They did at least University of the Cape of Good Hope. In agree to finance a ‘home university exhi- common with institutions in other parts of bition’ to send a Natal scholar for tertiary Britain’s Empire, it was modelled on the training in Britain. Less fortunate aspir- University of London with no teaching ing graduates could still take advantage facilities of its own. It was essentially an of the 1875 Cape University Extension examining body, like the earlier Board of Act which enabled the University of the Public Examiners, prescribing syllabi and Cape of Good Hope to hold examinations evaluating students prepared at secondary outside that Colony. institutions such as the South African Col- The subsequent 1896 Cape University lege (1829) in Cape Town and the Victoria Incorporation Amendment Act extended College (1866) in Stellenbosch. In 1877 membership of the University’s Council Queen Victoria granted the University a to Natal, Free State and South African Royal Charter, theoretically endowing Republic nominees, in exchange for annual its degrees with the same status as those contributions to its expenses. From 1897 conferred by British universities.2 Natal took up the offer, by which stage In the same year, acting on the recom- several of its high schools were providing mendations of an 1873 commission of post-matriculation tuition for local Cape of enquiry, Natal’s Lieutenant-Governor, Good Hope candidates. These included the Sir Henry Bulwer, took time off from the Durban Ladies’ College and Durban High looming crisis culminating in the 1879 School, Michaelhouse, Girls’ Collegiate in Anglo-Zulu War to draft legislation intend- Pietermaritzburg and Maritzburg College. ed to launch a ‘Royal College of Natal’. It was the latter institution which was to His hope was that this would eventually provide the Natal University College with provide local access to university-level ed- its first modest accommodation.3 66 Stella Aurorae: Establishing KwaZulu-Natal’s First University The Natal University College Report of May 1905 recommended that established the teaching staff based there should also When the Colony of Natal’s Government meet ‘the requirements of Durban’ and that at last, in its twilight years, recognised the there should be an administrative comple- need for locally-based tertiary education its ment in both centres. Mudie disagreed, immediate concern was to provide appro- firmly advocating one university campus, priate technical training. What Brookes has with bursaries for promising Durban described as ‘a surprisingly utilitarian bias’ matriculants to attend there. In his view, was really quite understandable in view of Maritzburg College, with its current crop the efforts which had been made in that of eleven post-matriculation scholars and direction since the 1850s and the practical six masters serving as ‘lecturers’, could needs of a colonial economy struggling to provide the obvious nucleus for such an emerge from a severe post-Anglo-Boer war institution.4 (1899-1902) recession. The Natal Techni- The two Reports were simply shelved cal Education Commission appointed late without being discussed in Parliament, in 1904 was, predictably, dominated by possibly due to indecision as to how the members with technical interests, not least expectations of the two centres might be its chairman, Sir David Hunter, Manager of reconciled. It was more likely attributable the Natal Government Railways. Notable to a severe shortage of government funds exceptions were W.J. O’Brien, who was in the wake of ambitious expenditure on later to feature prominently in university public works during the earlier war-time development, and C.J. Mudie, Natal’s Su- boom, the heavy cost of re-organising perintendent of Education. His liberal arts colonial defences under the 1903 Militia background induced him to withdraw from Act and the additional financial burden the Commission before it had completed of counteracting a major outbreak of east its deliberations and subsequently to sub- coast fever in 1904. In April 1907, while mit a minority report. This reinforced the officialdom prevaricated, Dr S.G. (Sam) dualism which had already characterised Campbell convened an enthusiastic meet- the debate about university development ing of Durban citizens in his Berea home in the region. There was unanimity that a to discuss the establishment of a ‘Technical University College should be established Institute’. Chaired by local businessman in Pietermaritzburg but the Commission’s Sir Benjamin Greenacre and including Sir Colin Webb Hall as Library, NUC, Pietermaritzburg 67 Stella Aurorae: Establishing KwaZulu-Natal’s First University Mechanical Engineering Lab, NUC, Durban David Hunter, this gathering was a clear extent that the Colony’s Government had expression of the port city’s perceived ₤30,000 to spend on the university project. need for practical tertiary education. In On 11 December 1909 it promulgated July 1907 the Durban Technical Institute the Natal University College Act, shortly came into existence, in 1915 renamed the before ceasing to exist in favour of Union Durban Technical College and in 1922 the on 31 May 1910. In this way the Natal Uni- Natal Technical College. In 1912 this new versity College was formally established, institution also began to produce candi- exclusively for the admission of white dates for examination by the University matriculants. It joined seven other colleges of the Cape of Good Hope, though it is in presenting candidates for examination evident that as early as 1907 Campbell by the University of the Cape of Good and several of his associates hoped even- Hope. These were the South African Col- tually to establish a university of its own lege in Cape Town, the Victoria College for Durban.5 in Stellenbosch, the Huguenot Seminary Instead, the resolute C.J. Mudie seized (1874) in Wellington, Rhodes University the initiative by persuading his friend and College (1904) in Grahamstown, Grey superior, Natal’s Minister of Education, University College (1907) in Bloemfon- Dr C. O’Grady Gubbins, to appoint yet tein, the Transvaal University College another education commission in January (1906) in Johannesburg (in 1910 renamed 1909. Seven months later, after Mudie had the South African School of Mines and fed it detailed proposals, this body reported Technology) and the Transvaal University in favour of establishing a university col- College (1910) in Pretoria.6 lege in Pietermaritzburg, with no mention of extending similar facilities to the port. From College To University In the same year a teachers’ training col- lege was established in the colonial capital. It took the Natal University College nearly By then, there were clear indications of forty years to achieve full university status. an economic upswing in the region, to the In 1916 the Universities of Stellenbosch 68 Stella Aurorae: Establishing KwaZulu-Natal’s First University (formerly Victoria College) and of Cape college. It also enjoyed some measure of Town (formerly the South African Col- independence in that, unlike the previous lege) were granted that distinction, both dispensation, its own teaching staff now having been strengthened by substantial participated in constructing the syllabi endowments. In the same year a new and examined their own students, with examining body, the University of South the advice of external examiners, instead Africa based in Pretoria, was established to of assisting them in ‘spotting’ questions replace the University of the Cape of Good that were set and marked
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