Byera Hadley Scholarship

Byera Hadley (1872-1937) was an architect and educator who began his career at the Sydney Technical College (STC) in 1895.  He lectured and later led the architecture program, the forerunner for the UNSW Built Environment’s architecture program.  Hadley’s greatest contribution to NSW architecture remains his insistence on the importance of travel in Australian architectural training.

When Hadley died in 1937, his will established a bequest of £10,000 for graduates of the Sydney Technical College and Sydney University [now expanded to all NSW universities] to be administered by the NSW Architects Registration Board.  Byera Hadley’s wishes have been satisfied by the Board’s desire to select architects based on their ability for “profiting most” from the Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarship.  In 1961, Leslie Reedman became the first UNSW Built Environment (BE) recipient.  Since then, many BE students have been awarded the scholarship, right up to the recent winners which include Boris To, enrolled in the Bachelor of Architecture Studies.

Years after his death, some of Hadley’s lecture notes, exercise books and photographs made their way into the UNSW archives. Most of these photographs have been identified and catalogued and provide rare images of a lost cityscape and in some cases, early images of interiors now radically altered or destroyed. A number of unidentified photographs remain in the collection and we have published a selection of them in a gallery below.  Perhaps you recognise these structures?  If so, please contact us bealumni@unsw.edu.au and quote the file number e.g. 1927 41.

To read more about Byera Hadley, please click here for an essay by Dr Michael Bogle.  Michael is a historian specialising in the history of Australian architecture and design. He recently contributed a story about Byera Hadley in the UNSW Archives magazine, Origins No.14 and is an occasional lecturer here at BE.  Michael’s essay is from the biography commissioned by the NSW Architects Registration Board in 2011 that includes pictures of Hadley’s work and a list of his commissions.  This is an excerpt from the recent biography of Byera Hadley was commissioned by the NSW Architects Registration Board in 2011. 

See the NSW Architects Registration Board website for updates on the scholarship.

Click here for the BYERA HADLEY UNIDENTIFIED PHOTOGRAPHS
(from the UNSW Archives Collection)