The University of Madras was incorporated on 5 September 1857 by an Act of the Legislative Council of India, the same year as the universities of Bombay and Calcutta. Its own history page traces the idea back further, to a public petition for an English college in Madras presented on 11 November 1839. For its first decades the university taught nothing at all. It set exams and awarded degrees, while colleges across the Presidency did the teaching.
This piece covers those founding years and the buildings that followed. Senate House and the Tamil Lexicon have their own stories; here the focus is how the university began and grew.
A petition, a board and a despatch
The 1839 petition led to a University Board in January 1840, which set up a high school that later grew into Presidency College. The real turning point came with Sir Charles Wood’s Education Despatch of 1854, which proposed universities on the London model in the three Presidency towns. Madras Musings notes it was later called the Magna Carta of English education in India.
The university’s first job was clear from the start: examine students and confer degrees in arts, law, medicine and engineering. It had no campus and no teaching departments of its own. Colleges such as Presidency College in Madras, and others across a Presidency that then stretched into parts of today’s Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala, sent candidates to sit its papers.
The first examinations and graduates
The first matriculation, or entrance, examination was held in September 1857. Of 41 candidates, 36 passed. When the first BA examinations came, only two candidates sat them: C.W. Thamotharam Pillai and Vishwanatha Pillai, both from the American missionary seminary in Jaffna, according to the same Madras Musings account. Thamotharam Pillai went on to become a celebrated editor of classical Tamil texts.
Women came later. One early milestone: Sister Subbalakshmi passed the BA in 1911 with a first class from Presidency College, described in Madras Musings as the first Hindu woman, and a widow, to do so. She founded the Sarada Ladies’ Union the next year.
How the university grew
| Year | Development |
|---|---|
| 1857 | Act of incorporation (5 September); first matriculation exam |
| 1873 | University works from part of the Presidency College building until Senate House is ready |
| 1877 | Private candidates allowed to sit exams with Syndicate approval |
| 1881 | 24 affiliated colleges: seven first grade, the rest second grade |
| 1885 | Degree in teaching offered; affiliation rules tightened |
| 1891 | Registrar becomes a full-time post |
| 1912 | Endowments fund new departments |
| 1923 | Madras University Act consolidates its role |
| 1957 | Centenary; Nehru lays foundation of the Centenary Building |
Most entries above come from Madras Musings; 1912 and 1923 are from the university’s own history page. The 1912 endowments mark the move from a pure examining body to a university with its own teaching and research departments, and the 1923 Act gave that change a legal footing.
The buildings on the Marina
Senate House, the university’s first home of its own, is Robert Chisholm’s design, which the CMDA heritage paper dates to 1864 and describes as Byzantine blended with Indo-Saracenic. Beside it stands the main university building of 1913, designed by Edward Reid and Booth, with Somasundaram as contractor, to match Senate House in style. CMDA calls it well maintained apart from some interior changes.
The library had a wandering early life. It used space in the Connemara Public Library building in Egmore until 1928, when it moved to Chepauk, according to the information sheet for the Connemara centenary stamp.
The centenary celebrations in January 1957 included an exhibition at the College of Engineering, Guindy, a science symposium and a sports meet. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru received an honorary degree and laid the foundation of the Centenary Building. Historian K.K. Pillay wrote the university’s two-volume centenary history, one volume on its first hundred years and one on its affiliated colleges.
The university today
The university describes itself as an affiliating university that leads a large network of colleges, and says it has been graded A++ by NAAC. Its campuses are spread across the city, with the Chepauk and Marina buildings still the public face. For admissions, results and the current list of affiliated colleges, go to unom.ac.in rather than third-party sites.
Quick answers
When was the University of Madras founded?
It was incorporated on 5 September 1857.
Who were its first graduates?
C.W. Thamotharam Pillai and Vishwanatha Pillai, both from Jaffna, were the only two to take its first BA exams.
Did the university teach in its early years?
No. It only examined students and awarded degrees; teaching departments came after 1912.
Where did the university work before Senate House?
From part of the Presidency College building, until Senate House was completed.
Information checked against official sources on 18 October 2026. Fees, dates and rules can change; confirm on the linked official pages before acting.
