An overview of university education in South Africa and the founding of the University of Natal
3.3. The Natal University College
3.3.3. A College is founded
At the instigation of C.J. Mudie, the Superintendent of Education in Natal, the Natal government appointed another Education Commission in 1909 which unequivocally recommended the institution of a University College in Pietermaritzburg. Providentially, in the same year the colonial Government also found itself with £30,000 to spend before the Colony of Natal ceased to exist.196 Hastily therefore, on 11th December 1909, a scant six months before the Colony’s legal existence expired on 31st May 1910, the Natal
University College Act No. 18 of 1909 by which the Natal University College was founded, was promulgated. Thus, says Metrovitch:
... the Natal Government decided to rush through a measure, which would give Natal its own University College and thus enable it to enter the Union on
193 Brookes, A history of the University of Natal, p. 6.
194 Rees, The Natal Technical College, 1907-1957, p. 34
195 B.M. Narbeth, From a very small beginning, reprinted from The Natal mercury, 27th July 1931, [p. 1].
196 University of Natal, Calendar, 1960, [S.l.: The University, 1960], p. 1.
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something like equal terms with the other States as regards the facilities it possessed for higher education.197
The first meeting of the Natal University College Council, presided over by Sir Henry Bale, Chief Justice of Natal, was held on 21st January 1910. Professors Petrie (Classics) and Denison (Physics and Chemistry), who were the first of the eight new professors to arrive, met their classes on 18th April 1910 in a two-roomed wood and iron building at Pietermaritzburg College School, taking over from the school staff.198 Petrie describes that first morning:
On the morning of Monday, the 18th of April, 1910, two newcomers to the city appeared at the Maritzburg College. They were Dr. R.B. Denison, first Professor of Chemistry, and the writer, first Professor of Classics, of the recently established Natal University College ... After sundry introductions, they addressed a few words to the assembled senior pupils, from whom the members of their respective classes were to be drawn. Nothing much more than perhaps some arranging of timetables could have taken place that day. But, whatever happened, it was an epoch-making morning. The work of the N.U.C. had begun!199
Subjects other than Classics, Physics and Chemistry continued to be taught by the schoolmasters until the remaining professors arrived in August of the same year.
Brookes remarks, “Thus, under every material disadvantage, and bearing every mark of hurried improvisation, the Natal University College began its history.”200 It is interesting to note that at the time of the appointment of the new professors, academic ties with Great Britain were still strong since, of the eight Professorships, only three were appointed from South Africa. In 1910 there were 57 students, the “N.U.C.
Aboriginals,”201 of which 49 were men and only eight women. In August of that year, while they waited for their new premises to be constructed, the College moved to the Town Hall, with the exception of Zoology classes under Professor E. Warren which remained at the Natal Museum where he was the Director, and Chemistry classes under Professor Denison which continued at the school where there was a laboratory.
197 F.C. Metrovich, The development of higher education in South Africa, 1873 – 1927, Cape Town: Maskew Miller, 1929, p.13.
198 A.F. Hattersley, The University of Natal, 1909 – 1960, unpublished manuscript, p. 15.
199 A. Petrie, N.U.C. 1910, Nux, 15th September, 1945, Pietermaritzburg: Students’
Representative Council, Natal University College, p. 2.
200 Brookes, A history of the University of Natal, p. 13.
201 Petrie, Nux, 15th September 1945, p. 2. They were probably given this name because the term “aboriginal” is defined as “inhabiting … a land from the earliest times …” - The new Oxford dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon, 1998.
The first building, now called the old Main building, designed by Pietermaritzburg architects, Messrs. Tully, Waters, Cleland and Pentland Smith, and “personally supervised” by Tully himself,202 was erected on forty acres of land donated to the new university by the Pietermaritzburg Town Council. The foundation stone was laid by His Royal Highness, the Duke of Connaught, on 1st December 1910 and the building was officially opened on 9th August 1912 by the Minister of Education, F.S. Malan.
Unfortunately the sum of money put aside for furniture and fittings was reduced to such an extent that, according to Brookes, it appeared as if “a large part of the building, including the Great Hall and the chemistry lecture theatre would be left without
furniture of any kind.”203 For the first few years the only sources of revenue were student fees and a grant made by the Natal Law Society towards the salary of the Professor of Law. The balance was made up by ad hoc Parliamentary grants. Council therefore had very little financial control and the College had no endowments to supplement the inadequate funds. Brookes does not mince words:
In these circumstances it was a real miracle that the College was able to retain the services of the gifted men who formed its first teaching staff. What kept them there, except a loyalty to the job unusual to-day?204
Relief in the form of state aid allowed the Council to assume full financial control from 1st April 1913. The Government grant was made on the basis of £1 for £1 on general
expenses and maintenance and £3 for £1 on professorial salaries.
The onset of the world war in 1914 placed a great strain on the struggling College. Many young Natalians responded to the call for service. Prospective students went to the battlefront instead of to University while existing students left with their courses incomplete. Student numbers fell to forty in 1916. The University Council offered the Government the use of the Scottsville building, with the exception of the science
laboratories, for the purposes of a convalescent hospital. The College itself moved out in 1917 to rooms in the Natal Government Railways headquarters in Loop Street where they remained for the duration of the War.
On 2nd April 1918, in accordance with the provisions of Act no. 12 of 1916, the Natal University College became a constituent College of the University of South Africa, which
202 Natal University College, The African Architect, September 1912, p. 60.
203 Brookes, A history of the University of Natal, p. 15.
204 Ibid.
status it retained until it received its own charter in 1948. Brookes states that this new status was “a distinct improvement”205 since it meant that students were examined by their own teachers together with external examiners on syllabi which the said teachers had assisted in drawing up. No longer did they have to “spot questions” for external examinations which would be marked by strangers. One person representing the Council and one the Senate of every constituent college sat on the Council of the University of South Africa. Thus professors of the constituent colleges were able to exercise some measure of control over the University’s work.