Wits: 90 Years of Making History

By Sue Krige

This book is a series of snapshots of Wits’ history over the past 90 years. Our focus has been on capturing beguiling, and often quirky, moments on Wits’ timeline, rather than writing a comprehensive history of the University. Our aim is to highlight how Wits has been shaped by its social and political contexts throughout the past nine decades, and how the University, in turn, has influenced the world around it.

Each story in the book has been carefully researched and draws on primary sources and personal interviews in addition to the relevant literature. The book is not divided chronologically, but into a number of themes: Origins, Buildings and Landscapes, Teaching and Learning, Research, Student Life, Sport, Community, and Politics.

There are a number of themes that thread through the stories in the book. One is mining, and, related to that, Wits’ distinctive urban character. The cover photo (pictured alongside), taken in 1939, powerfully illustrates Wits’ physical relationship with the city – the emerging skyscrapers in the City, the cooling towers of the power station in Newtown and the ubiquitous mine dumps acting as backdrop. Wits began as a School of Mines, but, from 1917, its offerings included broader arts and science courses, in anticipation of the granting of university status. The Wits Mining Research Institute will be launched on 27 September 2012.

Wits has always thrived on the energy and innovation in the industrial heartland of South Africa and the City’s fortunes are inextricably linked with those of the University. Since the 1980s, Wits’ urban identity has been richly enhanced by the many students and staff from other provinces, the rest of Africa and the world, who have made Wits their university of choice.

Sue Krige is the editor of this book, which will be launched on Thursday, 20 September 2012 at the opening of the Wits90 Treasures exhibition in the Wits Art Museum.