Sydney Anglicans looked to the future in founding colleges at local universities, writes IAN WALKER.

With a concern to have a stronger evangelical presence on campuses, and in reaction to the liberal nature of church colleges and the excesses that seemed to be associated with them, an Anglican group (formed from the evangelical movement in the 1950s) decided to establish new residential colleges on Sydney's campuses and beyond.

At the time of its formation as a company in 1960, the group " known as the New University Colleges Council " comprised Lawrence Lyons, a lecturer in Chemistry at Sydney University and later Professor of Chemistry at the University of Queensland; his wife, Alison, a high school teacher; Ron Winton, a medical practitioner and historian and Editor of the Australian Medical Journal; Edwin Judge, a reader in History at Sydney University and later Professor of History and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Macquarie University; John Hawke, also a lecturer in Chemistry at Sydney University and Broughton Knox, who had succeeded Marcus Loane as Principal of Moore College in 1958. The Council was chaired by Bishop Clive Kerle, and the President was Archbishop Hugh Gough.

During the 1950s, a number of these people were involved in setting up hostels in association with Sydney University. When the lease of two Glebe Estate hotels on Broadway came to an end, Laurie Lyons and Harold Fallding, a lecturer in sociology at Sydney University, occupied one of them " the University Hotel " by literally camping in it. Laurie Lyons recalls a rat running across his face during the night, while Marcus Loane recalls taking most of the students at Moore College to the hotel to clean it up: "the stink from beer was dreadful…the dirt almost an inch thick". The two hotels became a hostel for men and a hostel for women.

What they really wanted, however, was a College. John Hawke saw the opportunity to set up colleges as: "a unique opportunity for an evangelical diocese to make its imprint on the University system…a full college backed by the University, fully affiliated with it, financed partly by the government, with proper academic staff, could be a base for that in the long term". Commonwealth and State funding to match funds raised was a God-send!

The group first set its sights on Sydney University. The New University Colleges' Council found Sir Charles Bickerton-Blackburn, the Chancellor, supportive, but the Vice-Chancellor, Sir Stephen Roberts, not so helpful. The Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Alex Mitchell (soon to be foundation Vice-Chancellor of Macquarie University), was much more supportive. Various sites were considered but nothing eventuated, though negotiations in various forms went on into the early 1980s.

A "New College'

In the meantime, much more successful negotiations began with the University of NSW, which had already opened the first of its secular "Kensington Colleges', Basser College, in 1959. The University clearly needed accommodation for its students, and the Vice-Chancellor, Philip Baxter, was courteous and encouraging in his support for the Anglican group. Prominent business and lay people were approached for support, though in the end the Council raised funds from MLC borrowings and money held on behalf of the Church of England Television Society.

Land for a College was considered at Little Bay, Daceyville and on part of the Randwick Racecourse. The University eventually agreed to provide land at a "peppercorn rent" to both an Anglican and a Roman Catholic College on Anzac Parade near the Barker Street corner of the campus. The Vice-Chancellor insisted that a foundation clause in the Act of Incorporation of Sydney University that had been written into the Acts establishing most other Australian universities, be written into the lease for the Anglican and Catholic colleges " that "no religious test shall be administered to any person in order to entitle him to be admitted as a student of the said college or to enjoy any benefit, advantage or privilege thereof". The lease for an Anglican college to house 210 was signed with the University in 1966. The first Master was the Rev Noel Pollard.

When Stuart Barton-Babbage became Master in 1973 he recommended that the College become co-ed, with the first women admitted in 1974. The College developed significantly under Stuart's guidance and also under the Mastership of the Rev Dr Bruce Kaye from 1982 to 1994. Apart from care and support for students, the College sought to engage intellectually with the University and wider community. It has continued to do that under the Masterships of Dr Allan Beavis and Professor Trevor Cairney, though it is now much more closely linked to the Standing Committee of the Diocese and to the student ministry moulded by the Dean of Sydney Phillip Jensen. The Institute for Values Research has now become the Centre for Apologetic Scholarship and Education (CASE).

The New University Colleges' Council recently wound-up, with New College and Robert Menzies College (which opened in 1973 at Macquarie) becoming independent of each other, though by no means independent of the Diocese. The "golden era' of funding has long gone; colleges are resource and people intensive places. Today universities in Australia are often more attracted to partnership arrangements with commercial companies in the provision of student housing and villages.

Sydney's Anglican colleges are nevertheless doing well in being a church presence on our secular campuses; engaging with the academic community; and providing much sought after support and care, especially for young undergraduate students. Over the years they have been places where young people have come to a firm faith in Jesus Christ, and they continue to promote the fullest possible university experience.

Dr Ian Walker is Principal Fellow, The Kensington Colleges and Adjunct Research Fellow, School of History, UNSW. This is an edited address given to the Anglican Historical Society (Diocese of Sydney).