The birthplace of brilliance
The character of Wits University including its massive infrastructure and spaces reflect its origins and changing societal needs through the years.
The university’s development as a crucial place in Johannesburg, part of its fabric, has been an organic one, allowing Wits’ staff, students and communities to navigate their way creatively across disciplines and campuses.
The origins of Wits lie in the South African School of Mines, which was established in Kimberley in 1896 and transferred to Johannesburg as the Transvaal Technical Institute in 1904.
It became the Transvaal University College in 1906 and was renamed the South African School of Mines and Technology four years later.
Other departments were added as Johannesburg grew and in 1920 the name was changed to the University College, Johannesburg.
Full university status was granted in 1922, incorporating the College as the University of the Witwatersrand, with effect from the first of March that year.
Seven months later the inauguration of the university was duly celebrated.
Prince Arthur of Connaught, governor-general of the Union of
SA, became the university’s first chancellor, and Professor Jan H Hofmeyr its first principal.
Building began at Milner Park on a site donated to the university by the Johannesburg municipality.
In the early days, Wits also operated from Eloff Street in the city centre and gradually moved to its first completed teaching buildings, the Botany and Zoology block, housing the departments of Geology, Botany, Zoology and Applied Mathematics at Milner Park in 1923.
The university had at that stage six faculties (Arts, Science, Medicine, Engineering, Law and Commerce), 37 departments, 73 members of academic staff and just over 1,000 students.
In 1925, Central Block, a building whose front exterior is well recognised for its iconic and majestic pillars, was opened. During the period between the two world wars, student numbers were impressive despite the financial constraints – in 1939, 2,544 students enrolled. That grew to 3,100 in 1945.
The period between 1947 and the 1980s was marked by considerable growth – student numbers increased rapidly to 6,275 in 1963, 10,600 in 1975 and 16,400 a decade later. In 1951 the University awarded its 10,433rd qualification, in May 1981 its 50,000th and by 1988 its 73,411th. Today, Wits has over 200,000 graduates across the world.
The medical library and the administrative offices of the Faculty of Medicine moved to a new building in Esselen Street, Hillbrow, in 1964. The Graduate School of Business was established in Parktown in 1968. In 1969 the Ernest Oppenheimer Residence was formally opened in Parktown.
Savernake, the official residence of the vice-chancellor, also located in Parktown, was made available to the university in 1969. In the same year, the clinical departments in the new Medical School were opened. However, the Medical School moved premises again and is now situated in York Road, Parktown, in a complex that was opened on August 30 1982.
The Johannesburg College of Education was transformed into the Wits School of Education in Parktown, now firmly embedded in the faculty of humanities.
Expansion into Braamfontein also took place. In 1976, Lawson’s Corner, renamed University Corner, was acquired. Senate House, the university’s main administrative building, was occupied in 1977.
The Wedge, a building formerly owned by the National Institute of Metallurgy, was taken over by Wits in 1979. The Milner Park showgrounds were acquired in 1984 from the Witwatersrand
Agricultural Society and renamed West Campus. Today, the campuses range across some 400ha. In 1989, the Chamber of Mines Building for the Faculty of Engineering on the West Campus was opened and the brick-paved AMIC deck was built across the M1 motorway to link the east and west campuses.
The university’s interests have not been confined to development and expansion at Milner Park and adjacent areas. In the 1960s, the university acquired the Sterkfontein farm, with its world-famous limestone caves rich in archaeological material. In 1968, the neighbouring farm, Swartkrans, was purchased.
In contrast to its Johannesburg campuses, the Wits Rural Campus is surrounded by wide-open spaces where herds of antelope roam beneath marula trees. Located near Bushbuckridge on the border of Limpopo, Mpumalanga and Mozambique, the campus was established in the 1980s in response to the critique that Wits was essentially an urban university. At the time, Professor John Gear argued that “rural and urban are two sides of the same coin. The fate of one impacts the other.”
The WRC is truly interdisciplinary, serving as a base that enables Wits researchers and students from a range of disciplines to engage with rural issues in a wider context. The rural campus has been hailed as an exemplar of what universities need to do to transform society – bridging the gap between poor and rich, rural and urban, local and international.