University of Queensland Timeline
| The following timeline highlights some of the important dates in UQ's history. Thanks to Moya Pennell in the Office of Marketing and Communications for her substantial work on it. The timeline is not definitive and suggestions for additions are welcome. | |
| 1909 | The University of Queensland is established by An Act of State Parliament to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Queensland’s separation from the colony of New South Wales. Government House, George Street, Brisbane is dedicated to University purposes. |
| 1910 | The University is founded officially when the Queensland Government Gazette publishes a notice listing the 20 members of the first Senate. |
| 1911 | Eighty-three students, including 23 women, attend the first classes in the Faculties of Arts, Science and Engineering. The official Inaugural Ceremony of the University of Queensland is held in the Exhibition Buildings, Brisbane. St John’s College opens at Kangaroo Point (relocates to the St Lucia campus in 1956). |
| 1912 | Emmanuel College opens on Wickham Terrace and King’s College opened at Kangaroo Point. They relocate to the St Lucia campus in 1956 and 1955 respectively. |
| 1914 | The Women's College open at Kangaroo Point, they relocated to the St Lucia campus in 1958. |
| 1914-18 | First World War slows progress initially but after the war, research and teaching activities expand rapidly. The University soon outgrows its George Street quarters and the search for a larger campus begins |
| 1917 | St Leo’s College opens at Wickham Terrace, Brisbane CBD (relocates to the St Lucia campus in 1961). |
| 1922 | An additional site in Victoria Park (now occupied by the Mayne Medical School) is secured by statute. |
| 1923 | Dr James O’Neil Mayne and his sister, Miss Mary Emelia Mayne, give the University nearly 700 acres of land at the junction of Moggill Creek and the Brisbane River. |
| 1925 | Faculty of Commerce established |
| 1926 | University Senate accepts an offer from Dr James O&rsqu;Neil Mayne and his sister, Miss Mary Emelia Mayne, to donate £55,000 to resume 210 acres of riverside land at St Lucia and give the University an option to accept the area as a site for the University In 1929 the Maynes donate an additional £5,000 towards the project. |
| 1927 | Faculty of Agriculture commences teaching. |
| 1933 | Lack of finance delays development at St Lucia and the State Department of Agriculture and Stocks opens a Farm School on the site, under a lease arrangement. |
| 1935 | Faculty of Dentistry established. |
| 1936 | The University establishes the Faculties of Medicine and Veterinary Science. A complete School of Law established, named the T.C. Beirne School of Law, after its major benefactor. |
| 1937 | Duchesne College opens at Stuartholme Convent, Bardon. The College closes in 1942 when the premises are taken over for use as a wartime US Army military hospital. It reopens at New Farm in 1947 and relocates to St Lucia in 1958. |
| 1939 | Queensland Premier William Forgan Smith lays the foundation stone for the first building (subsequently named Forgan Smith) on the St Lucia campus. Forgan Smith Building is completed but the Second World War begins and it is used first as advanced headquarters for the Allied Land Forces in the South West Pacific. |
| 1948 | The move from George Street to St Lucia begins and is completed in 1972. |
| 1951 | The University leases an old silver-lead mine at Indooroopilly. Five years later, the Queensland Government buys the property from Brisbane City Council for use as an educational, experimental and research facility. This marks the birth of the University’s Experimental Mine, just 4 km from the St Lucia campus - the world’s only university-operated mine in a major city. |
| 1955 | Cromwell College is the first college completed and officially opened on the St Lucia campus (some students were already in residence in 1954). |
| 1964 | The Rockefeller Foundation provides £23,000 (AUD$46,000) to build the Heron Island Research Station on Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef. |
| 1965 | International House (a college for Australian and international students) and Union College (operated from 1947 as Union Hostel on Wickham Terrace, Brisbane CBD) open on St Lucia campus. |
| 1968 | Union College admits 50 women students and becomes the University’s first coeducational residence. |
| 1970 | Grace College opens on the St Lucia campus. |
| 1984 | The University launches UniQuest Pty Ltd, now its main technology and consulting company. Subsequent commercialisation initiatives include UniSeed, JKTech and IMBcom. |
| 1990 | The University of Queensland merges with Queensland Agricultural College (now UQ Gatton, a 1068ha campus 80km west of Brisbane) as part of a unified national system abolishing the binary system of universities and colleges of advanced education. |
| 1994 | Queensland Governor (and University graduate) Mrs Leneen Forde opens Customs House, the University’s heritage-listed Brisbane CBD base. |
| 1996 | After considering numerous alternatives, the University formally accepts the Queensland Government’s offer of the Challinor site to build a new high-tech campus at Ipswich. The honour naming of the Mayne Medical School commemorates the University’s greatest benefactors, Dr James O&rsqu;Neil Mayne and his sister, Miss Mary Emelia Mayne, who died in 1939 and 1940 respectively. Their identical wills brought the entire remaining Mayne family wealth to benefit the School via the Mayne Bequest Fund. (Note: other commemorations include The James and Mary Emelia Mayne Centre, converted from the former Mayne Hall and opened as an art gallery in 2004.) |
| 1999 | UQ Ipswich opens as one of Australia’s first totally Web-enabled campuses and about 500 students commence studies. |
