PWC traces its history to 1804 when land was set aside by Lieutenant-Governor Edmund Fanning for a college - the colony's first.

In 1835 Central Academy opened on a site along Grafton Street, immediately south of the National School.

It was the non-denominational character of PWC which led many of Island Roman Catholics to label the school as being "Protestant".

Master plans had called for quadrupling the size of the PWC Grafton Street campus to encompass most of what is now the eastern end of downtown Charlottetown with the proposed PWC-McGill campus being built along the area bounded by Grafton, Prince, Kent, and Edward Streets in a massive redevelopment of the community.

The PWC campus on Grafton Street was taken over by the provincial government and became part of UPEI during the early period of amalgamation.