History

Australia’s most radical and unconventional university

Founded in 1964, Macquarie University was a pioneer in many fields, including our open admissions procedures, student choice, semester and grading systems, small group teaching and academic self-appraisal.

Most of these practices are now widespread, but at the time, they were undeniably pioneering.

Naming the University

Choosing the name for Sydney’s third metropolitan university came down to two different schools of thought: those who wanted to commemorate a great Australian figure in education and those who preferred a geographical name.

In 1964, the NSW State Cabinet chose in favour of naming the University after a prominent Australian. In the end, Governor Lachlan Macquarie was chosen ahead of suggestions which included WC Wentworth and Sir Henry Parkes.

Learn more about Lachlan Macquarie’s influence on Australia, and his life and background. Visit Macquarie University’s Lachlan and Elizabeth Macquarie Archive, which provides transcripts, artefacts, images and historical details of the lives of the Macquaries between 1761 and 1835.

Our coat of arms

The arms of the University shall be on a field vert, the Macquarie lighthouse tower, masoned proper, in chief the star Sirius, or Motto: And gladly teche.

“Of studie took he moost cure and moost heede.
Noght o word spak he moore than was neede,
And that was seyd in forme and reverence,
And short and quyk and ful of hy sentence;
Sownynge in moral vertu was his speche,
And gladly wolde he lerne
and gladly teche.”
(from the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer c. 1400)

Macquarie Lighthouse and HMS Sirius

The Macquarie Lighthouse was the first lighthouse built in Australia. Shortly after the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, Governor Phillip ordered a flagstaff be erected to signal the approach of supply ships bound for Sydney Cove.

A beacon, fired firstly by wood and later by coal, was built in 1791 to guide vessels to the harbour entrance by night, becoming Australia’s first marine light. This beacon, tended by convicts, guided shipping for the next 25 years.

On 13 July 1816, Governor Lachlan Macquarie laid the foundation stone of the new lighthouse. The lighthouse was to be the first of many significant works by the convict architect Francis Greenway.

The present building is a replica built in 1880 by Colonial Architect James Barnet. However, the original building was not demolished until 1883, so, for a time, Sydney’s South Head boasted two almost identical lighthouses standing side by side.

The first lighthouse keeper was Robert Watson, after whom nearby Watson’s Bay was named. He had been quartermaster aboard HMS Sirius in the First Fleet.

Wallumattagal Campus

In 2022, Macquarie University’s main campus in Macquarie Park adopted a new name – Wallumattagal Campus – to recognise the Traditional Custodians of the land on which the University is situated, the Wallumattagal Clan of the Dharug Nation.

The name change recognises that First Nations peoples have a spiritual, social, cultural and economic relationship with their traditional lands and waters – and acknowledges their contribution to sustaining our local environments, education and culture for thousands of years.

It builds upon mutually respectful relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities and is one of a number of significant measures undertaken under the Macquarie University Indigenous Strategy 2016–2025 [PDF 1253KB].