TRANSVAAL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, Pretoria.
The college’s arms may be blazoned:
Arms: Two shields accolée: The dexter shield azure, charged with the head of the goddess Minerva proper, crined and helmeted or, facing the sinister. The sinister shield vert, an oxwagon outspanned proper.
Crest: Upon an anchor an open book, all proper.
About the arms:
Unusually for a South African coat of arms, this device incorporates two separate shields leaning towards each other. The one on the dexter side (on the right as seen from behind; on the left as seen from in front) has its charge facing the centre.
The Roman deity Minerva, goddess of wisdom, was used in the same period as a symbol of learning by Stellenbosch University.
The sinister shield is a unique example of an application of the arms granted to the Transvaal Province in 1911 by royal warrant. These arms, although granted in London, were not notified to the provincial administration because the Cabinet did not regard them as proper (see here for a discussion of these events).
State Herald F G Brownell writes that General J C Smuts, as Minister of the Interior, “was privy to Cabinet decisions and would have known of the 1911 Royal Warrant”. In addition, he was “a leading figure in the establishment of the Transvaal University College (now the University of Pretoria). It is not surprising then that the first arms adopted by the College should depict two shields in accolée”.
The wagon depicted is not a full-tented trek-wagon or kakebeenwa, but a half-tented transport wagon. This type of wagon appeared in the seal of the Transvaal Colony and was taken up by the heralds of the College of Arms in 1910 for the Transvaal quarter of the Union arms.
Since the 1911 grants to the four provinces repeat the devices included in the four quarters, the wagon granted to the Transvaal is identical with that in the Union arms, and this wagon in turn follows that precedent.
The crest of an anchor and a book combines familiar symbols for learning (book) and for the Cape Colony (anchor), from which the Voortrekkers had come to the Transvaal (see here for more about this).
This crest was retained in the arms of Pretoria University.
About the college:
Although President Thomas François Burgers had made provision for higher education in the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek in his 1874 Education Act, and S J du Toit as Superintendent of Education for the Second Republic had made similar provision in his legislation of 1882, neither came to anything.
Du Toit’s successor, Dr N Mansvelt, put a similar provision in his 1892 Education Act which resulted in the establishment of the Staats Gymnasium in Pretoria in August 1893. Its first rector was Dr H Reinink, and on the staff were W A MacFadyen, lecturer in English, and Dr H G Breijer, lecturer in science. Reinink and MacFadyen both later became professors at the Transvaal University College, and Breijer, a geologist, had a lot to do with its establishment.
Moves towards establishing a university were, however, frustrated by the outbreak of war in 1899.
Following the conclusion of the war and the annexation of the ZAR as the Transvaal Colony, a commission of inquiry headed by Fabian Ware recommended the setting up of the Transvaal Technical Institute. Although based primarily in Johannesburg, from its very beginning it also included evening classes in Pretoria.
In the first half of 1905 the TTI council provided for three departments: arts, including the classics, English literature and modern languages; sciences connected with agriculture; and law. Dr Reinink was appointed to the arts department in 1905. The TTI issued certificates only.
In 1906 the institute was renamed Transvaal University College, but its seat remained Johannesburg. The Transvaal Government arranged it that students could write examinations of the University of the Cape of Good Hope.
TUC representatives were also given seats on the university’s council, General J C Smuts being one of the first. In March 1907 he was appointed Colonial Secretary in General Louis Botha’s Transvaal Cabinet. It was Smuts’s firm resolve to transfer the TUC’s arts and science courses to Pretoria.
On 7 June 1907 the TUC council adopted his scheme: technology and mining would remain in Johannesburg, agricultural science would be taught on the Frankenwald estate north of Johannesburg, and that “the Literary Courses and Science Courses such as are prescribed for the B.A. and higher degrees of the Cape University” should be transferred to Pretoria.
Despite strong opposition from Johannesburg quarters, this transfer was effected, and the classes there were known as the Pretoria Centre (between 1908 and ’10).
A new, smaller council was appointed in 1908, with seven members from Pretoria and seven from Johannesburg. The Pretoria classes began with four professors, a number soon more than doubled.
On 7 April 1910 Smuts introduced three Bills at the final session of the Transvaal Parliament to establish: a university college in Pretoria, a school of mines in Johannesburg, and a national agricultural college.
The first of these was passed and published in the Government Gazette of the Union of South Africa on 17 May – so creating the Transvaal University College as an autonomous institution in Pretoria (now in the Transvaal Province), one of the eight constituent colleges of the University of the Cape of Good Hope.
From 1916 a Faculty of Agriculture began to take shape. The Faculty of Commerce and Public Administration was founded in 1919. Training in law was provided before 1910, but records of the Faculty of Law date back only to 1920.
Prof A C Paterson was appointed registrar in 1916, but was also required to lecture. He was apppointed the first rector in 1918, combining that post with the registrarship. In 1919 A A Roberts was appointed to the full-time post of registrar. Prof Paterson resigned as rector in 1921, but continued in office until 1922.
In 1925 Dr N M Hoogenhout (principal of the Normal College) was appointed rector for two years. In 1929 Prof A E du Toit was appointed rector for five years.
The college was founded as a purely government institution, but in 1917 became State-subsidised. In 1918 its affiliation changed (technically) when the University of the Cape of Good Hope became the University of South Africa.
From its beginnings in Johannesburg, the TUC was an English-medium institution, but since many of the Pretoria students were Afrikaans-speaking, friction arose over this policy and the introduction of Afrikaans was mooted at various stages.
As early as 1917 Prof D F du Toit Malherbe lectured in Afrikaans to advanced students, and from 1921, lectures in a number of subjects were conducted exclusively in Dutch or Afrikaans, while lectures in others were duplicated.
By 1927 the extramural students were agitating for language equality and the intramural students, working through the Afrikaanse Studentebond, petitioned for a bilingual university. In 1929 A E du Toit declared openly for an Afrikaans university.
From the early 1920s efforts were made to have the TUC declared an independent university, and in terms of a private Act (Act No 13 of 1930) this was finally achieved, so creating Pretoria University.
Despite this move, the language struggle continued into the life of the new university.
Name and nickname:
The official name of the college was Transvaal University College (in English), and this did not change. However, especially as Dutch and Afrikaans became more and more part of the college’s life, it was increasingly referred to as Transvaalse Universiteitskollege, abbreviated to TUK.
From this abbreviation grew the nickname for the students: Tukkies or Tuks, both of which names are to this day used for students of Pretoria University.
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