John Anderson Hartley (27 August 1844 – 15 September 1896) was an Australian educator and Vice Chancellor of the University of Adelaide from 1893 to 1896.
[2] In 1871 Hartley became head master of Prince Alfred College, Adelaide, South Australia, then a comparatively new school with about 100 pupils.
In three years the number was raised to 150 and Hartley was getting on so well with the staff and the boys that it appeared as though the college had found its ideal principal.
Some four years later the council was abolished, and Hartley was appointed inspector-general of schools and permanent head of the South Australian Education Department.
He met with opposition from a section of the press and from teachers who objected to his methods, and Hartley was more pleased than otherwise when in August 1881 a select committee was appointed to go into the questions at issue.
Hartley devised the system of junior, senior, and advanced public examinations, and, as a member of the council of the University of Adelaide from its beginning in 1874, he gave much time to committee work and the framing of the curriculum for degrees.