The University of Sydney (the oldest in…

The University of Sydney (the oldest in Australia) is founded on October 1, 1850.

In 1848, in the New South Wales Legislative Council, William Wentworth, a graduate of the University of Cambridge and Charles Nicholson, a medical graduate from the University of Edinburgh Medical School, had proposed a plan to expand the existing Sydney College into a larger university.

Wentworth had argued that a state secular university is imperative for the growth of a society aspiring towards self-government, and that it will provide the opportunity for "the child of every class, to become great and useful in the destinies of his country".

It had taken two attempts on Wentworth's behalf, however, before the plan was finally adopted.

The university had been established via the passage of the University of Sydney Act, on September 24, 1850 and is assented on October 1, 1850 by Sir Charles Fitzroy.