JTC was founded in 1969 as the successor to Canisius College in Sydney, which since the 1930s had been the house of study for Australian Jesuits preparing for ordination to the priesthood.

Instead of constructing a large institutional building the Jesuits chose to house JTC in ten terrace houses in Royal Parade, Parkville. These houses now contain living areas, faculty and administrative offices, and some lecture and meeting rooms.

The first head of JTC was Fr William Dalton, who was responsible for both the community and academic aspects of the college. In 1974 these responsibilities were divided, and Fr Noel Ryan became the first academic Principal.

A College With and For Others

From the beginning, JTC worked in cooperation with the nearby theological colleges of the Anglican, Congregational, Methodist and Presbyterian churches. In 1973 JTC formally joined the United Faculty of Theology (UFT), in which these churches had pooled their teaching resources. In 1977 the Congregational, Methodist and Presbyterian churches united to form the Uniting Church of Australia.

	United Faculty of Theology
Comprising three member colleges:
Catholic	Uniting Church of Australia	Anglican
Jesuit Theological College	UCA Theological Hall	Trinity College Theological School

At the gracious invitation of Dr Davis McCaughey, the then Master of Ormond (Presbyterian) College in the University of Melbourne, the Jesuit library was housed in one of the Ormond College buildings. In the late 1970s, the Jesuit collection was amalgamated with that of the Uniting Church to form the Joint Theological Library (JTL).

JTL continued to expand to such an extent that it outgrew its present building and construction of a new building began in about July 2005, still on the grounds of Ormond College.

In February 2007, JTL re-opened in its new incarnation as the Dalton McCaughey Library. It is now situated on Morrison Close, the right-of-way off College Crescent, Parkville, between Ormond and St Hilda's Colleges. The Library forms the southern half of the new building: the northern part of the building is the Uniting Church's Centre for Theology and Ministry, which also houses the offices of the United Faculty of Theology.

Studying at JTC

The student body has, from the beginning, been an international one. As well as Australians and New Zealanders, it has at various times included Jesuits from Indonesia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Britain, South Africa, the United States, Singapore and Korea. A significant number of the Australian Jesuits who have studied at JTC were born in Vietnam, and one of these is now an adjunct member of the faculty.

JTC has also developed a close association with the Campion Centre of Ignatian Spirituality, which offers courses within the UFT and other courses which lead to a Melbourne College of Divinity (MCD) diploma or degree in spiritual direction.

Faculty Members and Their Works

For many years the JTC faculty consisted only of Jesuits, working alongside their colleagues from the Anglican and Uniting churches. More recently the JTC faculty has been expanded to include also some religious sisters.

The JTC faculty have a distinguished record in research and publication. Books published in recent times include:

• Maryanne Confoy's biography of Morris West - Morris West: Literary Maverick,
• Brendan Byrne's Lifting the Burden: Reading Matthew's Gospel in the Church Today (on the Gospel of Matthew),
• John Cowburn's Love,
• several books by Antony Campbell in Old Testament studies (commentaries on 1 and 2 Samuel, a commentary on Joshua to Chronicles, a study [with Mark O'Brien] on the sources of the Deuteronomistic history), and
• John Martis' study of the French postmodernist Lacoue-Labarthe - Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe: Representation and the Loss of the Subject.

In addition, JTC houses the office of the journal Pacifica, and both the Editor and Book Review Editor are members of the faculty. Andrew Hamilton is Publisher of the journal Eureka Street.

Faculty members are involved in consultancy work, in giving occasional lectures and workshops, and in teaching elsewhere, including in Manila, Boston, Vietnam and Indonesia.

Of special interest is the work in musical composition of Christopher Willcock (this in addition to his teaching in Liturgical Studies). Chris has a long record of composition of settings of liturgical texts. In recent times he has had performed music both sacred and secular, including A Gospel Bestiary (for the Tallis Scholars), a setting of the Miserere (for the Melbourne Chorale), a setting of the poems of Anna Akhmatova, and a series of Australian Christmas carols (in partnership with Michael Leunig).