Sesquicentenary 1999-2002

Sesquicentenary Dinner, 6 October 1999

The University of Sydney Sesquicentenary celebrations commenced in 1999 and commemorated various important phases in the foundation of the University. These included: the speech made in Parliament on 6 September 1849 by William Charles Wentworth advocating a university for Sydney; the passage through the NSW legislature of the Act of Incorporation on 1 October 1850; the first Senate meeting on 3 February 1851; and the arrival of the first students and the presentation of the first lectures in October 1852 and the inauguration of the University on 11 October 1852.

A Sesquicentenary Dinner was held at 7.00pm on 6 October 1999 in the Strangers Dining Room, NSW Parliament House, to mark the historic occasion on 6 September 1849 in the Legislative Council of the NSW Parliament when William Charles Wentworth moved for an enquiry into the establishment of a University. It was an introduction to the University of Sydney's sesquicentenary celebrations.

Many of the University's benefactors, alumni and staff listened to the Chief Justice of NSW, the Hon J J Spigelman, a distingushed graduate of the University, who reflected on Wentworth's views and their consequences for the contemporary university.

• Program
• Menu
• After dinner address
• Vote of thanks

Program

• Pre-Dinner drinks
• Music: String Quartet, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney
• Parliamentary welcome: The Hon John Aquilina MLA, NSW Minister for Education and Training
• University welcome: Emeritus Professor Dame Leonie Kramer AC DBE, Chancellor, The University of Sydney
• Scene setting: Professor Gavin Brown FAA, Vice-Chancellor, The University of Sydney
• Entree
• Main course
• After dinner address: The Hon James Spigelman QC, Chief Justice, Supreme Court of NSW
• Vote of thanks: Emeritus Professor Dame Leonie Kramer AC DBE, Chancellor, The University of Sydney
• Dessert & coffee
• Close
• Guest of Honour: The Hon William Charles Wentworth AO

Menu

• Entree:
  Smoked salmon, blue swimmer crab and prawns with ginger and lemon grass dressing
• Main course:
  Chicken fillet wrapped in prosciutto and baby spinach with tomato and anchovy butter
• Dessert & coffee:
  Lemon and almond tart with creme anglaise

After dinner address by The Hon James Spigelman QC

Chancellor, Minister, Vice Chancellor, Mr Wentworth. We have heard what this occasion represents; it's the 150th anniversary of a critical stepping-stone in the history of the University of Sydney. It's a prelude, our invitation to tonight's dinner, perhaps more appropriately, an overture. It's to the sesquicentenary celebrations which the university will commence to celebrate I guess from tonight, but for several years the Vice-
Chancellor tells us. The legislative chamber in which Wentworth delivered the two speeches of this day 150 years ago, the sixth of September, and also of the fourth of October, which was the day on which he moved the second reading of the university bill in the Council. That legislative chamber still exists and is now used by the legislative assembly. It is one of the oldest parliamentary chambers in continuous use anywhere in the world. It is appropriate that on such occasions such as this for us to pause and reflect on just how old many of our important institutions are. Australians like to think of Australia as a young country, but in many respects, and particularly in our basic mechanisms of governance, this is not a young country; this is an old country. On 17th May this year, the Supreme Court of NSW celebrated the 175th anniversary of its creation. The number of nations which have judicial institutions of such vintage can be numbered on the fingers of one hand. The Supreme Court and the first Legislative Council were both created under the NSW Act, a statute of the British Parliament of 1823. That was the first written constitution in Australian history. The beginnings of representative government occurred over 150 years ago. In a few years we'll celebrate 150 years of representative and responsible government, the pursuit of which was perhaps the single most thing of William Charles Wentworth's political life. These twin great institutional traditions of our civilisation, the rule of law, and the need for consent of the government, form part of the core content of Australian national identity. Their force today, reflected in the universal acceptance of the legitimacy of the institutions which perform these functions is derived in large measure from the longevity of the traditions by which they are performed. There is an embedded wisdom in institutions which have grown and developed over long periods of time. It is fitting that we commemorate anniversaries of the character which we gather here today to mark.

The speech which Wentworth gave on the sixth of September 1849 reveal some of the strengths of our society - strengths which have enabled us to enjoy a history of economic prosperity and social stability which is reflected in the longevity of our institutions, and which most nations of the world have reason to envy. The William Charles Wentworth of 1849 was no longer the firebrand of the 1820s when he returned from Britain with his legal qualifications and university experience from Cambridge. Shortly after his return he was admitted as one of the first two barristers of the Supreme Court of NSW. He immediately upon his admission - on the very day of his admission - he moved a motion in the Court that henceforth, as was the custom in England, solicitors should no longer be permitted rights of audience in the Court. It is perhaps pertinent to note that in 1846, one of Wentworth's political rivals, Robert Lowe, supported legislation that would have led to the amalgamation of the two branches of the legal profession. At this stage, Australians who wished to be admitted to the bar had to go to England and take up residence at one of the Inns of Court, merely, as Lowe put it, to eat thirty-six dinners there. Lowe argued in terminology - this is in 1846 - which will be reminiscent of recent debates, for what he called 'free trade in law'. He maintained that what he called 'the barrister monopoly' was, I quote "a tax on the administration of justice". Wentworth protested that the bill would destroy the dignity of the legal profession by making barristers stoop to collect their own fees. Some things change very little.

However, although that particular measure was defeated, the highlight of that debate was the necessity, as it was proclaimed, if the separation of the two branches of the legal profession were to continue, to establish a means of training Australians for the independent bar without the cost and inconvenience of travelling to England. Lowe and Wentworth both agitated for the creation of the university inter alia by reason of this need. Similar demands came from the medical profession at that time. The resolution that Wentworth moved to create a committee was a committee to be chaired by Wentworth and Lowe was another member of it. It was established by resolution on the sixth of September 1849, and it reported with commendable speed within fifteen days. Within a similar period on the fourth of October, the bill was moved for the first time in the Legislative Council. I wish to highlight for this evening's purposes, two aspects of the speech Wentworth delivered 150 years ago today. The first; the personal origins of an individual in either convict status or freedom, was the dominant social divide for the first century of Australian life. The second subject; the conflict amongst the major Christian denominations, lays claim to being the dominant social divide of the second century of Australian life. Wentworth, as is well-known, was the son of a convict mother. Notwithstanding his education, his contribution to society and his obvious personal capacity, not always consistently displayed, his entire public life was marred by the battle for social acceptance. His speech of sixth September 1849 refers on a number of occasions to the 'tainted population of the colony' . He propounded the greater responsibility of the government of the convict colony to provide for education greater than in other British colonies without this 'moral taint' . He said, and I'll quote briefly his address:

"If it was the duty of the state to instruct the free and virtuous population of those colonies, how much greater the necessity to enlighten the tainted population of this. The governments of those colonies had to deal only with the ignorance of untaught multitudes, here it was the duty of the government to do all in its power to subdue their vices".

The Hansard report of the speech indicates that at this point members of the council burst into cries of "here here" - some of it, perchance, ironic. This debate reflected the passions that convict origins could still incite at this time and their significance for the social, economic and political life of the colony. However within a few decades, other than in the most narrow of conservative circles of ever reducing size, this, the most important social issue of the early decades of colonial life, had passed into irrelevancy. This was the first manifestation of an extraordinary capacity for adaptation which our social institutions have displayed on a number of occasions, including the second theme of Wentworth's address, the importance of religious differences. But also, more recently in the absorption into our society, of waves of non-Anglo Celtic migration.

I've said a second theme, perhaps the main theme, of Wentworth's two addresses on the sixth of September and the fourth of October, was the importance of creating a secular institution. All proposals for public involvement in education had been bedevilled by the claims of the various denominations to control the education of their adherents. Indeed, early in his political career, Wentworth had conducted a campaign opposing plans by the Anglican establishment to create what would have been, effectively, a monopoly of educational provision in the colony. The proposal which Wentworth put forward in his speech on the sixth of September 1849, which the committee endorsed, and indeed which was established, was for a tertiary institution free from religious teaching so that no sectarian influences would impinge themselves on the educational process, and accordingly, that members of all denominations could allow their adherents to attend. A compromise, somewhat characteristic of our society, was put forward, in the form of affiliating denominational colleges to the university, so that the religious instruction, which most then thought to be essential, could occur within the context of those colleges, but not in the university itself. At that time of course, Cambridge and Oxford were Anglican institutions with a strict religious test for entry. The non-denominational University of London had only recently been established. However, as Wentworth pointed out during the course of debate, the universities of Scotland and of Ireland had no religious test. The controversial nature of the proposal for creating a university of this character was manifest in the refusal of the then Anglican bishop of Sydney to nominate a member to the first Senate. The social division between Catholics and Protestants, overlapping very substantially as it did with class divisions, remained of central significance in our society until comparatively recently. When I was pursuing my legal studies at the university in the late sixties, only thirty years ago, the significance of this division was quite apparent in the law. There were law firms in the city then, which had never had a Catholic employee, let alone a partner. There were others which had never had a Protestant. The position of the Commissioner of Police was filled alternately by a Catholic and a Mason, and that remained the case for many years. However over the last three decades, this basic social divide has dissipated. A sense of harmony has replaced long standing tensions. The speed and frictionless nature of this transition is another manifestation of the extraordinary strength of our social institutions and their capacity for adaptation. The report of the 1849 committee contrasted the failure to create a university after what was then 62 years of British settlement with the position in the United States. The report said, and I quote: "The University of Harvard, to our shame be it mentioned, was established by the pilgrim fathers of New England in less than twenty years after its settlement." In his speech of sixth September 1849, Hansard reported Wentworth to have said as follows: he should not weary the house by enumerating the endowments of the educational establishments of the United States. It would be sufficient to say that the endowments did not generally proceed from the revenue of the state.

Even at that early stage, the contrast between Australian and American traditions of philanthropy was clear. It has remained so since. Nevertheless, over the century and a half of its existence, this university has been able to attract substantial private support by Australian standards. I'm sure everyone present is acutely aware that contemporary developments in government funding makes such support more necessary than ever. If you're not aware of it now, the Vice-Chancellor will make sure you become aware of it.

It would be appropriate to conclude this address with a quotation of one of Wentworth's two speeches. However the modem ear is not well attuned to the bombast of Victorian rhetoric. Suffice it to say that Wentworth's comments were particularly focused on a patriotic assertion of the potential contributions of Australians to education and to civilisation. After 150 years, they remain worth, noble, and appropriate sentiments suitable for commemoration.

Vote of thanks by Emeritus Professor Dame Leonie Kramer

The unluckiest person in the world is the one who has to present a vote of thanks - no matter what the speech is like. If it's a bad speech, there's nothing you can say that won't offend the speaker. If it's a speech like the one we've just heard, there's nothing you need to say, because I don't need to tell you, not only how appropriate were the words of the Chief Justice, but how wise. He began with some remarks of institutions and their age, and I gloss that a little by saying that age is wisdom and experience, but not necessarily a virtue, though in the institutional sense, it often is, and certainly is in regard to the law, and I hope, to the University of Sydney. He denied that we are a young country; a denial which reminded me of the words of our poet A.D. Hope: "They call us a young country, but they lie". Now he talked in terms of geology, not in human history, but the same applies. The Chief Justice's endorsement and wise comments on the value of institutional experience I think are very much to the point at this moment in our history, where we look back tonight, but we also look forward.

And that leads me to what I think was his second principal theme, which is not the flexibility but the adaptability of our major institutions. And that is another way of looking at the history of the University of Sydney. It's strange to me how often universities are thought of as out-of-date, as retrograde, as conservative, as ivory tower places. One of our senior members of staff of a few years ago who gave a speech at a graduation said that an ivory tower wasn't a bad place to be because you could see a long way from the top. There's something in that. But the most important thing for us, I think, in what the Chief Justice said was this whole question of adaptability. We have, over the years, ever since we began, responded to new circumstances, to changes in history, to changes in student choices, to changes in our own levels of funding and that's what we're doing of course right now, but most of all we have changed because, unlike any other institution in society, at least that I can think of, we receive into the university every year, thousands of young people around about the age of eighteen. And I can't think of any other institution which could adapt to that extraordinary circumstance. Eight thousand I think was our enrolment thereabouts last year. Can you imagine eight thousand people descending on the Macquarie Bank, for example, at the age of eighteen, in the one year? And being able to go out of that place in three or four years time, able themselves to make a contribution to the community.

Thank you very much for what you've said to us tonight, it was not only entertaining and historically important to us, but it also gives us food for thought and a way of thinking about ourselves which we will remember for a long time.