The People’s University

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Tags: books, centenary, summer-2010, UQP

Cover of The People's University

An edited excerpt from UQ’s Centenary publication, The People’s University

It’s hard to believe there was a time when the vast majority of Queenslanders didn’t want a university.

Over a century ago few residents cared about the intellectual yearnings of what some called the “kid-gloved men” from the elite grammar schools of Brisbane and the south-east corner.

Far more urgent was the need for more railways. One famous MLA from the agricultural Darling Downs, William H Groom, labelled the idea of a university as another worrying example of the “Brisbanization” of the colony.

A journalist from the Courier wrote that universities were “jolly places” that manufactured “terribly bumptious persons”.

There were some brave men, including an archbishop, who complained about the intellectual sterility of Queensland and the need for a university to set higher academic standards.

By all accounts their comments didn’t win them many supporters outside the capital, where more than three quarters of the population lived.

Despite these early setbacks, and while swimming against the tide of public opinion, plans for a university slowly gained traction.

For nearly 40 years, from 1870 to 1909, the positives and negatives of the idea were argued in parliament and thrashed out in the public domain led by the determined University Extension Movement, which coincidentally was launched in 1893 with the help of William Groom’s son, Littleton E. Groom, who was its secretary.

Finally, in December 1909, The University of Queensland Act was signed.

The names of the members of the first senate appeared in the Queensland Government Gazette on 16 April 1910 along with the implementation of the previous year’s Bill, and this has become the date that marks official celebrations.

The University of Queensland was now in existence.

The People’s University, UQP, RRP $55

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