Arquivo F1492 - Queen's University. Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science fonds

The School of Mining and Agriculture, established in 1893, was designed to provide Queen's with an engineering faculty. The provincial government was not permitted to provide Queen's with any funding as long as it was a denominational university, which it remained until 1912. But Principal George Munro Grant, and Premier Oliver Mowat (son of one of Queen's founders and brother of one of its senior professors), got around this technicality by establishing the provincially-supported School as an independent institution. Sharing the newly-built Carruthers Hall, as well as its professors with Queen's Faculty of Applied Science, that latter was deliberately founded at the same time.

The School of Mining and Agriculture opened in 1893, and the faculty was created in 1894, with Nathan Dupuis as its first Dean. There was some dispute about what to name the new faculty, and, although it was officially called the Faculty of Applied Science, it was usually referred to as the Faculty of Practical Science (then the most common term elsewhere) in its early years. The School of Mining vanished from the campus scene in 1916, when it and the faculty united to become the Faculty of Applied Science. In 1993, the Faculty celebrated its Centennial Anniversary.

After Arts and Science, the Faculty of Applied Science is the second largest on campus, with close to 4600 students at the undergraduate level. Its students have long been known for their boisterous faculty spirit and are easily identified on campus by their dyed purple leather jackets.

In March 2010, and upon the formal approval of the University Senate, the name of the Faculty of Applied Science was changed to the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science. In the words of the Dean, Kimberley Woodhouse, "by including [the word] 'Engineering' in our name, we more accruately reflect what we do and who we are."