The Canterbury College Engineering Society was founded by the Engineering School Dean, Professor-in-charge Robert Scott on 19 May 1897 when the School of Engineering was merely 10 years old. As such, it is one of the oldest surviving student clubs at the University of Canterbury; only being younger than the Christian Union by a couple of months. In the early decades of the 20th century, the Engineering Society was regarded as one of the most important student organisation of what was then Canterbury College, alongside the Christian Union and the Dialectic Society.
