Dunedin - Otago University

Dunedin leaders Thomas Burns and James Macandrew urged the Otago Provincial Council during the 1860s to set aside a land endowment for an institute of higher education. An ordinance of the council established the university in 1869, giving it 100,000 acres (400 km²) of land and the power to grant degrees in Arts, Medicine, Law and Music. Burns was named Chancellor but he did not live to see the university open on 5 July 1871, when it accepted its first students , making it the Oldest University in New Zealand and third-oldest in Oceania.