[1] In 1830 in Colonial New South Wales, John Dunmore Lang, a Presbyterian minister, had ambitions to build an Australian College in Sydney.

For this he needed craftsmen so he dispatched his colleague, Henry Carmichael (also a Presbyterian minister in the colony) to Scotland to recruit men to build this college.

[2][1] Early lectures covered chemistry, history and astronomy, but also more quotidian topics such as the principles of taste, the choice of a horse and vulgarities in conversation.

The Rev Samuel Marsden was a member, future Prime Minister Sir Edmund Barton a debater, explorer Ludwig Leichhardt a lecturer.

This left the provision of schools in New South Wales as unsystematic as it had been in pre-Corporation days and just as dependent on government funding.

[5][1] Difficulties in finding suitable and permanent accommodation were experienced for a time until January 1836, when negotiations to acquire the lease on an allotment in Pitt Street, adjoining the Independent Chapel, were commenced.

The theatre, situated on the ground floor, had a curved front and was accessible via the centrally placed Colonial Georgian doorway with pediment which provided entry to the building.

[1] Early in 1845, the Committee purchased the leasehold of their Pitt Street allotment and plans to add two rooms for the Librarian were commenced.

[1] Having received permission by a special Act of Parliament in 1853 to dispose of a piece of land reserved for the SMSA in the Haymarket, the Trustees commenced searching for a new site.

Costs of rebuilding and the need to amend the Sydney Mechanics School of Arts Act, 1852, caused delays.

The foundation stone was laid by Governor Sir William Denison, the school's patron, at a ceremony on 19 December 1859.

[1] The second set of plans were also designed by Bibb, though this time work was divided into two stages in order to allow the School to continue functioning.

[1] The SMSA had commenced its institutional life for literary and recreational proposes and as a place where science and technical drawing, the keys and blueprints to nature, could be imparted to ordinary men.

Now, more than ever, Mechanics' Institutes could assist in colonial development and in the 'process of upward social mobility among workmen ambitious to "improve themselves in all ways".

[6][1] Thus in February 1873, the establishment of a Technical or Working Men's College was discussed and in July 1874, arrangements were made to lease a vacant allotment behind the School of Arts in George Street.

These arrangements, however were not concluded until May 1877, though the plans for a college building were accepted from Benjamin Backhouse, having won the committee's competition for a design.

The lack of funds hampered the growth of the college and its courses until at last, in 1888, the colonial government established a Board of Technical Education.

The façade is an example of restrained classicism in the Palladian style and is typical of late Georgian sandstone elevations now rare in Sydney.

It has stood on the present site since 1837, and has seen important early cultural and educational activities, including the first courses in drawing for Australian trained architects, and the first performance of a Gilbert and Sullivan musical in Sydney.

[1] The School of Arts was an important educative and social centre for Sydney's intelligentsia in the 19th century and its character and spaces still demonstrate aspects of an earlier way of life.