The Mitchell years

Modern undergraduate economics teaching at the University of Adelaide began in 1901. The University was founded in late 1874 and first offered subjects in March 1876. Twenty-five years later a core Economics undergraduate subject was introduced, and that year saw the first two B.A. students and first LL.B. student graduate after completing the subject. Adelaide was thus a very early provider of tertiary economics education. It was preceded only by the University of Pennsylvania, which introduced a Bachelor of Science in Economics a decade earlier, and by the London School of Economics which was established in 1895. Simultaneously, a Faculty of Commerce was established at Birmingham University in 1901 (Turner 1904), followed in 1903 by Alfred Marshall's success in getting tripos status for economics at the University of Cambridge.

That is not to say there were no precursor subjects on offer at Adelaide prior to 1901. From 1878 lectures in Political Economy were offered to B.A. and M.A. students by the Reverend William Roby Fletcher (Hughes Professor of English Literature). While it is not clear how frequently these subjects were taught or how many students enrolled, numbers must have been small initially because in 1880 the library had just two books in the field (both by John Stuart Mill). The older universities of Sydney and Melbourne also introduced political economy subjects in the late 19th century. And they, like Adelaide, complemented those offerings with university extension courses in economics for non-degree students, whose evening classes continued until well into the 20th century (Goodwin 1966).