About this site

Welcome to Nihon University 日本大学, Nihon Daigaku Newcastle Campus. Nihon University is a significant place for both developmental education and cultural exchange. Occupying the former Newcastle Courthouse building, the university offers state of the art learning facilities and unique study spaces amongst the historic and picturesque surrounds of the Newcastle suburb of the Hill.
The Nihon University Newcastle Campus is the first overseas campus for the university, originally founded in 1889 by Japan's first Justice Minister Yamada Akiyoshi. In an important era for the development of both Japan and Australia's judicial systems, the old Newcastle Courthouse building that houses Nihon University opened just 3 years after the establishment of the University in 1892.
The former Courthouse Building played a major role in the early judicial history of the city of Newcastle and its development throughout the twentieth century, acting as the principal courthouse in the city for over 100 years. It is designed in the Victorian Italianate style by the Colonial Architect James Barnet and his successor the first Government Architect Walter Liberty Vernon. The building over its lifetime has been witness to many of the significant events of Newcastle's history from the opening of Christ Church Cathedral in 1902 to the Newcastle Earthquake of 1989.