Editorial Type:
Article Category: Research Article
| Online Publication Date: 05 Nov 2007
Of Men and Mining Education: The School of Mines at the University of Sydney
Of Men and Mining Education: The School of Mines at the University of Sydney
Page Range: 192 – 215
Colonial Australian science grew by a process of transplantation, adaptation, and innovation in response to local conditions. The discovery of gold in 1851, and the location of vast resources of other minerals, transformed the colonies, as it did the imperial economy. In this process, the role of mining engineering and mining education played a significant part. Its history, long neglected by historians, illuminates the ways in which the colonial universities sought to guide and direct this engine of change, conscious both of overseas precedent and local necessity. This paper considers the particular circumstances of New South Wales, and the role of the University of Sydney, in seizing the day—and producing a degree—that lasted nearly a century.
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