history

The College of Saint John the Evangelist was founded on July 1st 1858 with the proclamation of the St. John's College Act in the Parliament of New South Wales.

Its founder, Archbishop Polding, named it after the author of the fourth Gospel. The symbol of the College is therefore the eagle, the traditional symbol of St John, denoting a high-flying perspective on the world. The College began life with a Benedictine foundation. Its buildings reflect the Benedictine tradition, and to a large extent that noble tradition endures to this day.

Since its inception, St. John's College has sought to be a center for an Australian style of Catholic excellence within the University of Sydney.

Firstly, the College is a community of people at senior, postgraduate and undergraduate level. They live a collegiate lifestyle together based on intellectual, liturgical, cultural and physical activities. In so doing, this community is a Christian presence in the University, witnessing to Gospel values and fostering Catholic scholarship for today's world. In the spirit of Christian humanism it seeks to demonstrate that there is an irresistible connection between high intellect and deep faith.

Secondly, for the individual student, the College provides an enjoyable home on the University campus, with an environment conducive to personal growth and discernment of one's place in and contribution to the world. A profound sense of citizenship, generosity to the underprivileged and the cultivation of Gospel values in daily life and business are virtues we hope to promote. This perspective makes St. John's distinctive and animates its educational climate, pastoral care, sacramental celebration, spiritual life, and promotion of scholarship, sportsmanship and stewardship.

Thirdly, under the direction of its Visitor, the Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney, (currently His Eminence George, Cardinal Pell) the College associates itself with the interests of the Australian Church and its mission, particularly by the fostering of appropriate academic directions in education, charity, social justice, ethics and environment.

St. John's College admits students who have faith commitments and beliefs other than those of the Catholic Church. It expects that, in a genuinely ecumenical spirit, they will contribute to and complement the distinctively Christian character of the College.

St. John's College values its association with the University of Sydney, not only through its various faculties but also in its general life and interests. The imposing presence of St John's on the campus of the University gives ample witness to the far sighted vision of Bede Polding who held that, apart from religious formation, he would put above everything else "the diffusion of sound taste and love of the fine arts." It seeks to be a place of intellectual excellence, where students will be inspired to perform at a level consonant with their highest academic abilities, being unsatisfied with a shallow and unreflective mediocrity. It is for these reasons that St John's College has a long and distinguished history as one of the premier residential colleges of the Asia Pacific region.

St John's College is the oldest Catholic tertiary institution in Australia. It seems likely that it was the first Catholic college to be established in a pre-existing non-Catholic university in the English-speaking world since the Reformation. This extraordinary claim gives it a unique place and a special significance in the history not only of Australia, but of Christendom. Its ambitious conception and its splendid building is a lasting tribute to the courage and far-sightedness of the early population of New South Wales. The words of the architect Wardell still inspire us:

Beginnings (1858-1917)

In 1854 the first effort to establish the College of Saint John the Evangelist was made at a meeting in the old St Mary's Cathedral. The Government promised a pound for pound subsidy of up to a 20,000 pound limit provided at least 10,000 pounds was raised by public subscription. Remarkably this was met in six months from July 1857.

On December 15, 1857 the Act of Incorporation was passed in the newly-formed NSW Parliament and St John's College became a reality. The Proclamation of the Council took place on July 1st 1858 and thus St John's was founded.

The significance of St John's is great, both in architectural terms and in religious terms. As a building it is unique in Australian Collegiate architecture not only in its combination of scale, quality and construction, but also in the fact that it is the product of two of Australia's most famous colonial architects. It is also unique in that it does not follow the style traditional to the English Collegiate system. In religious terms St John's became a symbol of hope for the future of Catholics in Australia. It became an answer to the grumbling of the laity about the fact that education was in a backward state in the Catholic community in the 1860's. Being the first Catholic university college in the British Empire, St John's was a triumph for the community.