The university began in 1908 as the community-owned Eastern Suburbs Technical College on John Street,
Hawthorn, to provide further education to residents of Melbourne's eastern suburbs.
George Swinburne MLA, with the backing of Premier
Thomas Bent, was the driving force behind its establishment, and its most generous benefactor, hence the name of the university. By 1913, £10,111 had been spent on its establishment, of which £3,718 came from private donations (including £1,000 each from George and Ethel Swinburne), and the remainder from the government. The first director was the sculptor
J. R. Tranthim-Fryer, who remained in the position until 1938. In 1913 the institution was taken over by the State Government, and its name changed to Swinburne Technical College. It later became known as the Swinburne Institute of Technical and Further Education (
TAFE), eventually shortened to Swinburne Institute of Technology. In the late 1980s, the Outer Eastern University Planning Council advocated for a new university to be established in outer eastern Melbourne. The area had the second lowest university participation rate in Melbourne, after the Mornington Peninsula. Partially in response to this advocacy, in 1990 Swinburne established its "Eastern Campus" in Mooroolbark (sometimes described as Lilydale), on the site of the recently closed MDA Grammar School. However, students could not attend until 1992 due to council planning negotiation, By 1993, it was known as the "Mooroolbark Campus". The
Dawkins reforms to Australian higher education in the early 1990s led to many tertiary colleges being merged or split-up, and many given university status. On 1 January 1992, the university was given the Prahran Campus of
Victoria College and the co-located
Prahran College of TAFE, both of which had evolved from the
Prahran Mechanics' Institute (established in 1854). Swinburne attained university status on 1 July 1992 with the passage of the
Swinburne University of Technology Act 1992. In 1997, Swinburne opened a campus at
Lilydale, replacing its nearby one at Mooroolbark. In 1998, it merged with the Outer East Institute of TAFE and began operating from campuses at
Croydon and
Wantirna. In 1999, Swinburne established the
National Institute of Circus Arts (NICA). In 2000, the university opened a campus in
Sarawak, Malaysia, as a partnership between the university and the Sarawak State Government:
Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus. In 2008, it collaborated with two other universities in forming
The Centre for Social Impact. In February 2011, the university opened the Advanced Technologies Centre, a 22,000 square metre building of modern architectural design at its Hawthorn campus, known locally as "the cheese grater building". Following a series of funding cuts announced by the Victorian Government to vocational education in May 2012, Swinburne announced that it would close its Lilydale and Prahran campuses. Lilydale campus officially closed on 1 July 2013, and was taken over by
Box Hill Institute in 2016. The university sold its Prahran campus to the
Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE in 2014. The site became the home of NICA, and in 2022 was acquired by the Victorian Government, along with
Melbourne Polytechnic on the same site. NICA's degrees have been administered by the university and this will continue until the end of 2025, when they will be transferred to the
Australian College of the Arts (Collarts). In 2015, Swinburne launched its law school. Through a partnership with Leo Cussen Centre for Law, Swinburne Law School is the only law school in Victoria accredited by the Victorian Legal Admissions Board (VLAB) to enable students to accelerate their admission to legal practice by completing their practical legal training during the final year of their studies.
Swinburne Film and Television School The Swinburne Film and Television School, which offered the first tertiary course in filmmaking in the country, was founded in 1966 by filmmaker Brian Clark Robinson (1934–1991). The first course offered, from 1966, was the Diploma of Art in Film and Television, which was the first such course to be offered in Australia. In 1967 it was known as the Film and Television course of the School of Art. In 1976, Swinburne formed a department of film and television, with Robinson was appointed its head. By 1983, the school offered a three-year Diploma in Film an TV, for school-leavers, as well as the graduate diploma, with over 90% of graduates finding employment in the film and television industries. In September 1991 Swinburne Film and Television School celebrated its 25th anniversary. In 1996, Barbara Paterson published ''Renegades: Australia's first film school: from Swinburne to VCA'', based on her 1993 masters thesis, "Portrait of a film school : the history of the Victorian College of the Arts School of Film and Television, formerly known as Swinburne Film and Television School". Swinburne School of Film and Television (SSFT) teaches filmmaking at Swinburne, and is a full member of
CILECT (the International Association of Film and Television Schools). ==Structure and governance==