Investing in the Future

seventeenth century. Wealthy merchants gave young institutions money, land, libraries and rare items. Their belief in the value of higher learning is echoed by the growing number of philanthropists whose gifts have helped transform the University of Auckland, the largest university in New Zealand. In 1884 Mr Justice Gillies made history when he gave $3,000 to the then very young University of Auckland, and so became its original philanthropist. Gillies' gift was more generous even than those regularly given to New Zealand's older University of Otago, and was exceptional because Auckland had a smaller population and was less wealthy than the other university cities at that time. However, from the 1930s privately funded prizes and scholarships began to be seen more frequently in Auckland. In that decade a local engineer and former lecturer in engineering, Samuel Crookes, launched a fund to save the engineering school in Auckland, which the state was determined to see discontinued, and raised over $6,500 in three years. Another significant philanthropist, Sir William Goodfellow, made his initial gift to the University in 1947 – $50,000 to build the Maclaurin Chapel. Since then, he and succeeding generations of the family have given…