Lumen Autumn 2024 - Flipbook - Page 24
A history
begun
audaciously,
continued
boldly
Lumen is honoured to
have distinguished alum
Keith Conlon as guest
editor of this section.
Here he gives his “potted
history” of our University
and our state, the two being
inextricably intertwined.
The University of Adelaide motto, Sub Cruce Lumen, refers to the
Southern Cross, but it was a galaxy of stars that aligned to bring it into
being in the 1870s.
This year’s 150th celebration takes its timing from just one of a series of
moments and movements that allowed a small city, less than 40 years old, to
realise an audacious concept. After all, there were only four universities in all
of England at that time. What’s more, South Australia’s economy had been
devastated by the exodus of workers to the Victorian gold rush in the 1850s.
They say success has many parents. We might say the same for
significant dates. This year we are celebrating the 1874 enabling legislation
that resulted from a remarkable turn of events two years earlier.
The statue facing North Terrace of a gentleman sitting comfortably
commemorates the crucial role of Walter Watson Hughes, a colourful
character without whom we might have been waiting a lot longer for
Adelaide’s first university. A former merchant ship captain who made a
quid in the opium trade, Hughes became fabulously wealthy after a copper
mining boom on his Yorke Peninsula sheep station.
Another star aligned when Hughes offered a huge gift to an embryonic
Union College for Presbyterian and Congregationalist pastors. As part of
his generosity two foundational Chairs were created. The Hughes Chair of
Classics, Comparative Philology and Literature was established (along with
a Chair in English Language, Literature and Moral Philosophy) and endures
to this day.
Many nonconformists had been attracted to South Australia because of
its firm ‘no state religion’ policy. That and its many reformist ideals led the
University’s Professor Douglas Pike to give his definitive history of South
Australia the title, Paradise of Dissent. Generously, clerics involved thought a
university might be achievable and of great benefit to the province. Thus, in
1872, a University Association was formed – its first meeting was chaired by
Anglican Bishop Augustus Short, an energetic scholar who would become
the first Vice Chancellor overseeing teaching in 1876. More celestial
moments were yet required, however.
Without extraordinary gifts for professorships and more from Thomas
Elder, the brave endeavour would likely have failed. The founding donor
Walter Watson Hughes said so himself. More serendipity - Elder’s firm
was a major investor in the Moonta and Wallaroo mines bonanza. More
beneficence came in his will when he died in 1897. It included funds to
build the Elder Hall. His statue stands close by.
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