The first lectures in chemistry at the University of Melbourne were given in 1856, only three years after the University was founded.   The first lecturer in chemistry was Dr. John Macadam, the Government Analyst, who held a part-time appointment and lectured to medical students. 

In 1882, John Drummond Kirkland was appointed the first Professor of Chemistry. In 1886, Kirkland was succeeded by David Orme Masson, who was appointed from the University of Edinburgh, after an extensive international search.   Masson (later Sir David Orme Masson) led the School from 1886 to1923, establishing chemistry firmly as a discipline in its own right and creating a thriving and successful research School.

Among Masson's many accomplishments, were the establishment of the Society of Chemical Industry in Victoria (1900) and the Melbourne University Chemical Society (MUCS, 1903), the first of the University Chemical Societies in Australia. Masson Road and the Masson Theatre in Chemistry commemorate the Masson years. 

Following Masson's retirement, the School was led first by David Rivett and then by Ernst Hartung from 1928 to 1952, who secured the necessary funding and oversaw the building of the chemistry buildings which house the teaching activities of the School today. 

Since Hartung's years, the School has grown rapidly and now has approximately 70 academic and professional staff involved in teaching and research, with 2000 undergraduates enrolled in chemistry subjects and 100 BSc (Hons) and postgraduate research students. 

In 2005 the $100 million Bio21 Institute of Molecular Science and Biotechnology was opened, incorporating state-of-the-art research laboratories for a number of research groups in the School of Chemistry fostering research in a dynamic interdisciplinary environment.

[For further information about the history of the School of Chemistry see 'Masson of Melbourne' by Len Weickhardt, Royal Australian Chemical Institute (1989); 'The Chemistry Department of the University of Melbourne - Its Contribution to Australian Science 1854-1959' by Joan Radford, Hawthorn Press (1978)]