The documented student governance in Canada goes back to the 19th century. The claim to the oldest student union in Canada is made by the Queen’s Alma Mater Society (Queen’s AMS), which lists 1858 as its founding year — older than the Canadian Confederation.
But is it really the oldest student union?
The student unions, as we understand them today, exist to represent students’ interests within university decision-making. Naturally, they take on other responsibilities, such as organizing extracurricular activities, delivering services to students, managing student journals, etc. Their membership is also supposed to be open to any student who takes classes at a university and pays membership fees.
Not every student gathering with an open membership policy constitutes a student government. What distinguishes a student union from other student organizations is formal authority: the body must hold a recognized mandate to represent the student body as a whole, and to participate in, or exercise influence over, university governance. A single-issue advocacy group, a recreational society, or an informal assembly of students, even one that voices collective grievances, falls short of this threshold if it lacks that institutional standing.
By this definition, the oldest student union would be the organization that can trace its continuous lineage to the earliest formal student governing body with representative or administrative authority, regardless of any subsequent renamings, restructurings, or legal changes.
What unions at the oldest Canadian universities correspond to these criteria? The answer is not as clear as one would think, and reveals a broader history of student governance in Canada.
The Case of the Queen’s Alma Mater Society
The Queen’s Encyclopedia has the following definition of its AMS:
“The oldest student association in Canada, the Alma Mater Society has been the central student organization at Queen’s since its founding in 1858. Its original goals were social and academic as well as political: to promote ‘the maintenance and defence of students’ rights, the interchange of friendly intercourse, the promotion and encouragement of learning, and the furtherance of the general interests of the University.’ It grew out of the old dialectic society, a debating association founded in 1843, and it officially remained a debating society until late in the century.”
Wait a minute. The Queen’s AMS grew out of a debating association and remained one until the late 19th century. Was it primarily a debating association with some student advocacy sprinkled in, or was it primarily a student government? The Encyclopedia carries on:
“Gradually, however, it also took on more and more responsibility for student affairs and for actual student self-government — that is, for the maintenance of nonacademic student discipline. This responsibility began informally to be delegated to students in the 1880s, and in 1898, it was officially delegated by the senate to the Alma Mater Society and its new ‘AMS Court.'”
According to this, the Queen’s AMS did not begin informally managing student affairs until the 1880s, and only began doing so formally in 1898. What had it been doing between 1858 and the 1880s? Hilda Neatby’s Queen’s University, Volume I, 1841–1917: And Not to Yield (1978) may provide more answers. The first mention of the AMS in the volume is on page 80: “the most important student activity in this period was the Alma Mater Society, perhaps an outgrowth or revival of the old Debating Society, but with much wider interests.” What follows are the aims of the AMS from its original 1858 Constitution. Neatby then describes a particular student advocacy campaign that worked on establishing regular physical exercise hours, but to no avail (p. 81). There were also attempts to gain more autonomy from the university:
“The Alma Mater Society showed its interest in university politics by demanding for students the rights of those in Edinburgh University, the election of a lord chancellor by the graduates and a lord rector by the undergraduates. A few years later it requested the recognition of the right to a so-called ‘study week’ to be granted immediately before examinations.”
Besides the interesting reference to students in Scotland (remember it, as it will come up again), the book doesn’t elaborate on whether students were successful in their demands, but we know that the student-led position of a Rector at Queen’s University would not be established until 1913. As of the 1860s, what we know is that “meetings of the Alma Mater Society were held once a week for business, for the reading of an essay, or for a debate, and often for both.” At this point, the Queen’s AMS is a debating society that gathers to read essays, debate, and sometimes raise issues relevant to students. The next time the AMS is mentioned in the book is in the context of recounting the leadership style of Queen’s Principal George Monro Grant:
“It was, however, only near the end of his [George Monro Grant’s] years at Queen’s that the Alma Mater Society appeared as the recognized institution for dealing with student affairs, acting as the official channel between the students and the Senate. […] Even late in the 1890s when the Alma Mater Society had become by far the most important student organization, the annual election often found students divided into the ‘athletic’ and the ‘YMCA’ interests, the parties being known as ‘the Sports’ and ‘the Christians.'”
George Grant served as Principal of Queen’s until his death in 1902, so the reference to the AMS’s importance in Grant’s last years tracks with the official incorporation of the AMS in 1898. But what was the AMS doing prior to 1898?
“Meanwhile the Alma Mater Society remained chiefly a debating society, developing as its two special activities the Journal and the annual Conversazione. In 1877, it acquired a new constitution which emphasized the more general purpose of preserving the attachment of the alumni to the university and preserving the bond between all members of the university, students and ex-students. It was at this time, as far as undergraduates were concerned, a closed society with membership by nomination and vote of the society.”
This paragraph is very important. As of 1877, the AMS is (1) still a debating society, (2) also serving as an alumni relations organization, and (3) without an open membership policy. These characteristics do not help qualify the AMS as a student government. It is a closed debating society more interested in relations with alumni than in advocating for students’ rights. However, the constitutional changes of 1877 did not last long, as the society soon began accepting undergraduate members, although faculty members served on the executive committee for some time longer:
“Gradually the Alma Mater Society gave more attention to developing the undergraduate constituency. Within a few years all students were admitted to the society on the payment of a fee. For a time members of the faculty continued to serve on the executive, but the control of the society came more and more into the hands of a student executive, with faculty participation confined to membership on certain of the committees which planned the Conversaziones.”
By the late 1880s, two of the three obstacles to the AMS being considered a student government had been cleared: membership was now open to all students on payment of a fee, and control of the executive had passed largely into student hands. What remained was formal recognition.
“The constitution of 1898 reflected developments which had taken place gradually over twenty years. The Alma Mater Society now was fully responsible for coordinating and financing other student societies, for representing the views of the students to the Senate, and for maintaining order and discipline in all nonacademic affairs.”
To summarize, the history of the Queen’s AMS was not linear. It started as a debating society that gathered primarily for debates and occasionally advocated for students’ issues; in 1877, the society’s purpose had been defined chiefly as the maintenance of the bond between alumni and undergraduates; and over the course of twenty years between 1878 and 1898, it slowly morphed into a student government whose main purpose was to represent students, while also being responsible for discipline in nonacademic affairs. The Queen’s AMS is undoubtedly the oldest known continuously existing student organization in Canada, but it was not officially recognized as a student government until 1898.
Other Contenders for the Title
The next contender is the Dalhousie Student Union (DSU). Here is what the Dalhousie University Archives have to say about it:
“The Dalhousie Student Union (DSU) has its roots in student-led associations dating from 1863 that provided services to and represented the interests of Dalhousie students. In 1899 the General Students’ Meeting became known as the University Students’ Council, continuing to organize social events, publish The Gazette (for which they had accepted ownership in 1869), and operate the reading room.”
The archives are mostly silent about the student-led associations that existed since 1863, and no history of student government at Dalhousie is available until the mention of its reorganization in 1899. P.B. Waite’s extensive history of Dalhousie University, The Lives of Dalhousie University, Volume I: 1818–1925, Lord Dalhousie’s College (1994), does not mention the student union until the attempt to build a Student Union Building in 1913, interrupted by World War I (p. 221).
What we know from this short archive entry is that a representative student body did exist prior to 1899, called the General Students’ Meeting. This society published The Gazette, which students took over in 1869. Perhaps The Gazette has something to say between 1869 and 1899 about the General Students’ Meeting. If anyone from Dalhousie is reading this and knows of relevant volumes, please let us know. What is known for sure is that in 1899 the General Students’ Meeting became the University Students’ Council, and that marks the beginning of formal student government at Dalhousie.
Which other Canadian student unions are formally recognized as among the oldest? There is the Society of the Students’ Union of the University of King’s College, founded in 1890; the McMaster Student Body, which started in 1890 when McMaster University began operating; and the Students’ Executive Council of Bishop’s University, founded in 1893.
A curious pattern emerges: all the oldest student unions in Canada, including those with a tradition of student representation like the Queen’s AMS and DSU, began to formally incorporate in the 1890s. What had been happening in those years that led to the simultaneous incorporation of several student unions in locations far from each other?
The Transatlantic Connection
The likely answer finds its roots in Scotland. Do you recall the demands of Queen’s students, who petitioned for rights analogous to those enjoyed by their counterparts at Edinburgh University as early as 1860? This suggests that Scottish students had certain rights prior to 1860. Indeed, Scotland has a long tradition of student representation, which itself originates in medieval Bologna. There, students organized themselves into guilds known as universitates, electing from among their number a Dominus Rector who held administrative authority over university affairs, including, notably, the power to hire and dismiss faculty members. This was not a right granted from above but one students claimed for themselves, later recognized by the city of Bologna and, in time, by the papacy. It was through that papal recognition that the tradition reached Scotland: the Papal Bull of 1451, issued by Pope Nicholas V to establish the University of Glasgow, specified that students at the new university should enjoy the same privileges as those at Bologna, including the right to choose a rector.
It is not clear what happened to students’ right to participate in the selection of a rector thereafter, as there is a gap in the literature between the 1500s and 1700s on the subject. What is known is how this right was returned to Scottish universities. Eric Ashby and Mary Anderson’s The Rise of the Student Estate in Britain (1970) discusses how, during the 19th-century university reforms, Scottish students actively participated in Royal Commission discussions, unlike their English counterparts, who were hesitant to challenge authority. In 1834, Glasgow’s Lord Rector Henry Cockburn argued that students deserved stronger representation on University Courts, calling for at least one elected student member (p. 19).
These debates led to the Universities (Scotland) Act 1858, which mandated that the Rector be elected by the matriculated students at each university. The Act introduced student representation on University Courts, with the Rector initially filling the role since formal student bodies had not yet been formed. Queen’s University students knew about these developments, and that is why they campaigned for the same rights at their alma mater.
It was from this environment of active student participation that Robert Fitzroy Bell founded the first Student Representative Council (SRC) in 1884, inspired by practices he observed in Strasbourg. The SRC aimed to represent students, mediate communication with university authorities, and enhance student life. By 1889, Scottish SRCs received parliamentary recognition through the Universities (Scotland) Act 1889, which secured an SRC in each university and gave SRC representatives the right to make representations to the University Court.
And there is the connection between Scotland and Canada in the early 1890s. Students in Canada had been watching the developments in Scotland, and began formally incorporating their student societies to secure official university recognition. The oldest student organizations, which had spent decades accumulating responsibilities and influence in an ad hoc way, finally began to take the institutional shape of a student government. The Queen’s AMS had evolved from a debating society, gradually drawing more responsibilities into its orbit as students wrested control of their own affairs from faculty. The Dalhousie Student Union had grown from a loose collection of student-led extracurricular organizations, eventually consolidating into a single representative body.
What is the oldest student union in Canada?
There are two answers to the question in the article’s title.
The oldest formally incorporated student union is one of the two founded in 1890: the Society of the Students’ Union of the University of King’s College or the McMaster Student Body.
The oldest tradition of student representation is… still not the Queen’s AMS. According to the Archival Collection of the University of King’s College, “in 1806, students presented a memorial to the Board of Governors soliciting assistance in meeting their living expenses, obliged, as they then were, to provide their own servants. This was one of many petitions drawn up over the years.” Whoever finds those petitions, please send them to the Student Affairs Group in exchange for a reward.
