Template:Infobox Ancient Scottish University
The University of Glasgow is the largest of the three universities in Glasgow, Scotland. In fact, it is also one of the largest universities in the UK.
Foundation
“In the Year of Our Lord 1451, Glasgow University was firmly founded on a firm rock”
The University of Glasgow dates from the middle of the fifteenth century, a time of critical change in Europe. Consequently, it is one of eldest universities in the world.
It was founded in 1451 by papal bull of Pope Nicholas V, at the suggestion of King James II, giving Bishop William Turnbull permission to add the university to the city's cathedral. Its founding came about as a result of King James II's wish that Scotland have two Universities to equal Oxford and Cambridge of England. It is the second oldest university in Scotland (the 4th oldest in the United Kingdom), the oldest being the University of St Andrews (founded in 1413). The Universities of St Andrews, Glasgow and Aberdeen are ecclesiastical foundations, while Edinburgh is a city foundation. Modelled on the University of Bologna, Glasgow was, and has remained, a University in the great European tradition. The achievements of its teachers, students and graduates over more than 550 years have amply brought to fruition the hope expressed at its foundation, that the University should become “an overflowing fountain of the sciences, out of whose fulness all that desire to be imbued with the lessons of knowledge may drink”.
Medieval University
In the fifteenth century Glasgow was hardly more than a village, with a population of about 2000. It was chiefly important as the religious centre of a large diocese. At first the new University had no buildings of its own: teaching took place in the Cathedral, and later in a rented tenement.
Teaching was conducted by three or four Regents, one of whom was designated Principal. About a dozen students, some no more than 11 or 12 years old, entered the University each year. Many were drawn from the Scottish nobility; some were destined for the Church. The works of Aristotle, in Latin, covering the fields of logic, rhetoric, mathematics, physics, ethics, politics, psychology and metaphysics, formed the basis of study. Teaching began at 6 a.m. and continued until supper, except for some afternoons devoted to games.
John Major (or Mair), Principal Regent 1518-23, was a scholar of international repute and a leading opponent of Martin Luther.
A New Life
During the 16th century Scotland was rocked by religious turmoil, culminating in the establishment of the reformed church. The University, ‘pining in poverty and well nigh ruined’, with its finances depleted, and buildings in decay, all but fell victim to the uncertainties of the times.
In 1577 at the instigation of Principal Regent Andrew Melville, a new charter, granted by King James VI of Scotland, established a fresh constitution and provided a reliable source of finance, by assigning to the University the revenues of the nearby Parish of Govan. Within two years so many students were drawn to Glasgow that ‘the roumes war nocht able to receive them’.
Olde College
The need for more lecture rooms and accommodation for students had long been realised. Finally, in 1631, a programme of rebuilding on the east side of the High St was begun.
A public appeal for funds towards the cost brought in large sums. King Charles I’s promise to contribute £200 sterling was made good by Oliver Cromwell in 1654. The resulting complex was a fine example of Scottish architecture.
The Enlightenment
The eighteenth century brought to Glasgow many of the leading teachers and thinkers of the day, including Adam Smith and Joseph Black, who spread the reputation of the University far beyond the confines of Scotland. Great advances were made in science and medicine. Teaching came into the hands of ‘professors’ who specialised in particular academic subjects.
Adam Smith studied at Glasgow and Oxford before his appointment to the Chair of Logic in 1751, then of Moral Philosophy, 1752-64. His book, An Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), established Political Economy as a subject for academic study. (Statue by Hans Gasser, c. 1867) The Foulis Academy In 1753 Andrew and Robert Foulis, printers to the Universiy, set up an Academy for the training of painters, sculptors and engravers. It closed in 1776.
Industrial Revolution
James Watt in 1765, while attempting to improve the efficiency of a model Newcomen steam engine, in use as a teaching aid in the Department of Natural Philosophy, the young James Watt, employed in the University as ‘mathematical instrument-maker’, invented the separate condenser which cut down the wastage of steam, and greatly improved the efficiency of steam engines in general, as the Industrial Revolution gathered speed.
The University of Glasgow was in the forefront of the ensuing developments. Chairs of Civil Engineering and Shipbuilding reflected the importance to its economy of Glasgow's core industries. The anatomical specimens available for teaching at the Hunterian Museum drew medical students to Glasgow in large numbers. Lord Lister developed his theory of antisepsis at the Royal Infirmary. William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, was Professor of Natural Philosophy for more than 50 years.
A New Building
By the mid 19th century, the ‘Old College’ buildings in the High Street had become very overcrowded, and the general dilapidation and deterioration of the surrounding area in the wake of the Industrial Revolution encouraged a demand for a move to a healthier and more spacious environment, in keeping with the University's dignity and the city's prestige. The buildings were sold in 1863 to become a railway terminus..
Detail from a ‘Bird’s Eye View of Glasgow’, with the Old College and original Hunterian Museum in the centre, and the Cathedral further up the High Street.
(Illustrated London News, March 26, 1864)
New buildings, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, a leading exponent of the Gothic Revival in architecture, occupied the hilltop site at Gilmorehill on the western outskirts of the city. They were ready for occupation in 1870, though some parts remained unfinished: the Bute Hall was completed in 1882 and the tower was topped by an openwork spire in 1887.
May our Alma Mater rise again in glory’ On the evening of 29 July 1870 the Senate and Court dined in the Old College for the last time. “Professor John Caird proposed the toast ‘The Memory of the Old College’. Other toasts followed and were replied to, and thereafter the Loving Cup was passed and as each one drank he offered the suffrage: ‘Resurgat in Gloria, Alma Mater’. All then stood up, joined hands and sang ‘For Auld Lang Syne’. Next day the University gave possession to the Railway Company and ceased to occupy the site which had been its home for more than four hundred years.” (David Murray)
Queen Margaret College
behold them in their fair array...
Until the later 19th century all the students at the University were men. In 1883 a separate College for women, named after Queen Margaret, the saintly wife of King Malcolm Canmore, who was credited with bringing learning and civilisation to Scotland in the 11th century, was established at Northpark House about one kilometre from the University. The students were known affectionately as Q Emmas. In 1892 Queen Margaret College became formally part of the University; it closed in 1935, when all teaching was transferred to Gilmorehill. Northpark House is currently the Scottish headquarters of the BBC.
...rigg’d out for all the honours of the day
Most students lived at home, and walked considerable distances to attend classes. Traditionally students wore red gowns (which also kept them warm), still in use on ceremonial occasions.
The 20th Century
In 1901 Kelvingrove Park was the venue of the Glasgow International Exhibition with its theme of the development of the arts, the sciences, and industries. The exhibition provided a showpiece of the city’s achievements, to which the University, its teachers and its graduates had made no small contribution.
Students and graduates who fell in the two World Wars are commemorated in the University Chapel, completed in 1929.
During the 20th century many new buildings were erected round the core formed by the Gilbert Scott building. The numbers of students attending the University rose from 3000 to 15,000. A vastly increased range of degree courses has been on offer. New teaching methods were developed.
The new library building, on the north side of University Avenue, opened in 1968 (Media Services).
At the beginning of the 20th century, Frederick Soddy of the Chemistry Department, who had collaborated with Ernest Rutherford on research into the mechanism of radioactive decay and its effect on the structure of the atom, worked at Glasgow on the concept of isotopes. Soddy was awarded a Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1921.
Professor Ian Donald led the development of ultrasound techniques applied to medicine.
John (later Lord) Boyd Orr, famous for his work on nutrition, Chancellor of the University from 1946 to 1972, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1949.
Jubilee
In 2001 the University of Glasgow celebrated the 550th anniversary of its foundation in 1451, with an impressive array of events, including a torchlight procession from the Cathedral to Gilmorehill. Many honorary degrees were awarded at a series of ceremonies.
The University of Glasgow remains at the forefront of research in a wide range of fields and disciplines, ranging from the origins of life to microscale electronics.
In 2001, honorary graduates included Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, King of Asante (Ghana), and Prince Charles, Duke of Rothesay, pictured here with the Chancellor, Sir William Kerr Fraser and the Principal, Sir Graeme Davies.
Students come to study at Glasgow from almost every country, and its graduates pursue their careers throughout the world. Since its foundation in 1451, it can be estimated that half a million men and women have studied at Glasgow University. Links with other higher education institutions have been developed.
The 21rt Century
Glasgow has enjoyed a (usually friendly) rivalry with the University of St Andrews since its creation, and with Edinburgh University since its foundation in 1583. Of all the universities and tertiary education establishments in Scotland, only Glasgow and Edinburgh offer a complete range of professional studies including law, medicine, dentistry, and engineering, combined with a comprehensive range of academic studies including science, social science, ancient and modern languages, literature, and history.
In 2001, the University celebrated its 550th anniversary. Today, the University of Glasgow is one of the UK's leading universities with an international reputation for its research and teaching and an important role in the cultural and commercial life of the country. Glasgow has the fourth largest financial endowment among UK universities at £120m, and the fifth largest endowment per student, according to the Sutton Trust (2002).
In 2003 the university had around 17,000 students and 4,500 members of staff. Over 3,600 of these are postgraduate students, while around 2,600 are foreign students.
Firmly rooted in the West of Scotland from where it recruits 50% of its students, the University of Glasgow is nevertheless an international institution, attracting students from 80 countries and sending large numbers of students on study periods abroad. Today's research projects are typically international, with academics from every continent working in Glasgow while the University's own staff make valued contributions to collaborative work with some 200 institutions around the world.
Most of the University's 100 departments are to be found on the Gilmorehill campus, centred on Sir George Gilbert Scott's neo-Gothic main building. Its spire, added by his son John Oldrid Scott, is a landmark across the city. Glasgow's campus has more listed buildings than any other and reflects a vast range of styles. Pearce Lodge and the Lion and Unicorn Staircase are relics of the old University, moved stone by stone to the new site. The circular Reading Room is a listed building from the 1930s while the Library, Boyd Orr and Adam Smith Buildings reflect post-war fashions in public building design. The new Wolfson Medical School Building, which provides state-of-the-art facilities for medical students and staff, was opened in 2003.
The University Veterinary School is located three miles away at the Garscube Campus which is also home to the new outdoor sports facilities. The University's Crichton Campus is located on the outskirts of Dumfries, in South West Scotland.
The university is a member of the Russell Group of elite British Universities and is a founder member of the international organisation Universitas 21, an international grouping of universities dedicated to setting world-wide standards for higher education.
Facilities
The university's initial accommodations were part of the complex of religious buildings in the precincts of Glasgow Cathedral. This coexistence became increasingly uneasy with time, particularly following the protestant reformation, after which Glasgow became a predominantly dissenting city. In the 17th century this, combined with the university's growth and the broadening and secularisation of its curriculum, led it to establish its own two-quadrangled building outside the cathedral precincts, on the nearby medieval High Street.
Over the following centuries, the university's size and scope continued to expand. It was a centre of the Scottish Enlightenment and subsequently of the industrial revolution, and its expansion in the High Street was constrained by the density of the burgeoning mercantile district.
Consequently in 1870, it moved to a (then a greenfield site) on the Gilmorehill in the West End of the city (around three miles west of its prior ___location), enclosed by a large loop of the River Kelvin. Its accommodations there were a number of custom-made buildings, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott in the Gothic revival style. The largest of these (now called the Gilbert Scott Building) echoed (in a far grander scale) the High Street campus' twin quadrangle layout. Between the two quadrangles Scott built an open cloister, above which are his grand Bute Hall (used for examinations and graduation ceremonies), and the buildings' signature Gothic bell tower. The sandstone cladding and Gothic design of the buildings' exterior belie the modernity of its Victorian construction — Scott's building is hung on a (then cutting-edge) riveted iron frame, with a lightweight wooden-beam roof.
Even these enlarged premises could not contain the ever-growing university, which quickly spread across much of Gilmorehill. The 1930s saw the construction of the award-winning round reading room (it is now a grade-A listed building) and an aggressive programme of house purchases, in which the university (fearing the surrounding district of Hillhead was running out of suitable building land) acquired several terraces of Victorian houses and joined them together internally. The departments of Psychology, Computing Science, and Eastern European Languages continue to be housed in these terraces.
More buildings were built beside the main buildings, filling the land between University Avenue and the river with natural science buildings and the faculty of medicine. The medical school spread into neighbouring Partick and joined with the Western General Infirmary. The growth and prosperity of the city, which had forced the university's relocation to Hillhead, again proved problematic when more real estate was required. The school of veterinary medicine, which was founded in 1862, moved to a new campus in the leafy suburb of Garscube in 1954. The university later moved its sports ground and associated facilities to Anniesland (around two miles west of the main campus) and built student halls of residence in both Anniesland and Maryhill.
The growth of tertiary education from the 1960s led the university to build numerous modern buildings across the hill, including several brutalist concrete blocks: the Maclaurin building (housing the department of mathematics, named after university graduate Colin Maclaurin); the Boyd Orr building (a squat grey concrete tower housing lecture rooms and laboratories); and the Adam Smith building (housing the social science faculty, named after university graduate Adam Smith). Other additions around this time, including the glass-lined library tower and the amber-brick geology building were more in keeping with the Gilmorehill's leafy suburban architecture. Interestingly, the erection of these buildings around 1968 also involved the demolition of a large number of houses in Ashton Road, and rerouting the west end of University Avenue to its current position.
The University's Hunterian Museum resides in the Gilbert Scott Building, and the related Hunterian Gallery is housed in buildings attached to the University Library. The latter includes "The Mackintosh House", a rebuilt terraced house designed by, and furnished after, architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
The university opened a campus in the borders town of Dumfries. The Crichton campus, designed to meet the needs for tertiary education in an area far from major concentrations of population, is jointly operated by the University of Glasgow, the University of Paisley, Bell College, and the Open University. It offers a modular curriculum, leading to one of a small number of liberal arts degrees.
In October 2001 the century-old Bower Building (home to the university's botany department and biological museum) was gutted by fire. Manuscripts by naturalist Charles Darwin, together with a large number of samples obtained on his expeditions, were destroyed. The interior and roof of the building were largely destroyed, although the main facade remained intact. After a £10.8 million refit, the building re-opened to staff and students in November 2004.
The Wolfson Medical School Building, with its award-winning glass-fronted atrium, opened in 2002 [1].
The university is currently over a number of different campuses. The main one is the Gilmorehill campus, in Hillhead. As well as this there is the Vet School at the top of Maryhill Road, on the Garscube Estate. The University also operates a Dental School in the city centre; as well as the aforementioned Crichton campus in Dumfries; and in 2003 they opened their new Education Faculty Building (the St Andrews Building, replacing Bearsden's St Andrews Campus) in the Woodlands area of the city on the site of the former Queens College, which had in turn been bought by Glasgow Caledonian University, from whom the university acquired the site.
As well as these teaching campuses the university has halls of residence in and around the North-West of the city. They have the Murano Street halls in Maryhill; the Wolfson halls, also in Maryhill; Queen Margaret halls, in Kelvinside; Reith halls, in North Kelvinside; Kelvinhaugh Gate, in Yorkhill; and the Maclay halls in Park Circus, near Kelvingrove Park.
The university also has a large sports complex in their Garscube Estate, beside their Wolfson Halls and Vet School. This is a new facility. They sold their previous sports ground (Westerlands) which was in the Anniesland area of Glasgow.
Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery
In 1783 William Hunter bequeathed his substantial and varied collections to the University of Glasgow. They were ‘to be well and carefully packed up and safely conveyed to Glasgow and delivered to the Principal and Faculty of the College of Glasgow to whom I give and bequeath the same to be kept and preserved by them and their successors for ever.... in such sort, way, manner and form as .... shall seem most fit and most conducive to the improvement of the students of the said University of Glasgow.’
Hunter also bequeathed £8000 for the construction of a suitable museum. Designed by William Stark, the building, classical in style with a dome on top, was erected in the gardens of the College behind the High Street. The heating system was designed by James Watt. The Museum was opened to the public in 1807 ‘from twelve until two every day, except Sunday.’ The Hunterian is thus Scotland’s oldest museum.
‘On entering these rooms the eye is highly gratified with the taste and elegance of the dome rising from the centre supported by eight massy stone pillars of the Corinthian order’ (J. Laskey, 1813). The busts are of the poet Thomas Campbell and the painter Gavin Hamilton.
In 1870 the Hunterian collections were transferred to the University’s present site and assigned halls within Sir George Gilbert Scott's neo-Gothic building
At first the entire collection was housed together, and displayed in the packed conditions common in museums of that time, but significant sections were later moved away to other parts of the University. The Zoological collections are now housed within the Graham Kerr Building, the art collections in the Hunterian Art Gallery, and the books and manuscripts in Glasgow University Library. Hunter’s anatomical collections are housed in the Allen Thomson Building, and his pathological preparations at the Royal Infirmary, Glasgow.
Management
The management body, which is responsible for contractual matters; employing staff; and other matters such as the maintenance of the university property is the University Court. The Court takes decisions about the deployment of resources as well as formulating strategic plans for the university. The Court is chaired by the Rector (see below for more information), who is elected by all the matriculated students at the university.
However, day to day management of the University is undertaken by the Principal (who combines this role with that of Vice-Chancellor) and the Secretary of Court. The current principal is Sir Muir Russell who replaced Professor Sir Graeme Davies in October, 2003. The current secretary of court is David Newall.
The body which is responsible for the management of academic affairs, and the awarding of all degrees is the University Senate. The senate consists of various academics and is chaired by the Prinicpal of the university.
There are also a number of committees of both the Court and Senate that make important decisions and investigate matters referred to them. As well as these bodies there is a General Council made up of the university graduates that is involved in the running of the university. The graduates also elect the Chancellor of the university. A largely honorific post, the current Chancellor is Sir William Kerr Fraser, a former Principal of Glasgow University.
There are also five Vice-Principals, each with a specific remit. There is a Vice-Principal in charge of Learning and Teaching (who also acts as the Clerk to Senate); a Vice-Principal Estates; a Vice-Principal Research; a Vice-Principal External Relations; and a Vice-Principal Staffing. They each play a major role in the day to day management of the university.
Faculties
There are currently nine faculties at Glasgow University. They are Arts; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Education (formed when the university merged with St Andrews College of Education); Engineering; Information and Mathematical Sciences; Law, Business and Social Sciences; Medicine (includes Dentistry and Nursing); Physical Sciences; and Veterinary Medicine.
The Veterinary School is perhaps Glasgow's most famous Faculty, having wrought the personalities of James Herriot (aka Alf Wight), Eddie Straiton ("The TV Vet"), Sir William Weipers, among many others and has the distinction of having its degree recognised not only by the UK, but also the USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, as well as most other countries in the world, an honour shared by only a handful of other institutions.
The Medical Faculty is also one of Glasgow's greatest strengths. Traditionally considered one of the top schools in the UK, it placed first in The Times' 2004 ranking of UK university medical departments.
Students
Unlike the majority of Scotland's universities, the student body at the University of Glasgow are not members of the National Union of Students. Neither does their representative body take the form of a Students' Association, as it does at the other Scottish universities. However every student is automatically a member of the Glasgow University Students' Representative Council (SRC) and they have the right to stand for election to this body and elect its members. The President of the SRC along with one other SRC member, the Court Assessor, sits on the university's court (the overall management body of the university) and a number of SRC members sit of the university's Senate (the body that directs the academic affairs of the university, including overseeing student discipline). Each student has the right to opt out of being a SRC member, although this very rarely happens.
Students also elect a Rector (officially styled the Lord Rector) who holds office for a three year term and is legally entitled to chair the university court. This position is in practice largely an honorary and ceremonial one, and has been held by political figures including William Gladstone, Benjamin Disraeli, Andrew Bonar Law, Robert Peel, Raymond Poincaré, Arthur Balfour, and 1970s union activist Jimmy Reid, and latterly by celebrities such as TV presenters Arthur Montford and Johnny Ball, musician Pat Kane, and actors Richard Wilson, Ross Kemp and Greg Hemphill. In the past few Rectors have actually been present to perform the duties of their office, although in modern years there has been a trend to elect people on the expectation that they will be a working rector. Ross Kemp was asked to resign by the SRC (which he did) for what they felt was a failure to act as a working rector. In 2004, for the first time in its history, the University was left without a Rector as no nominations were received. When the elections were run in December, Israeli whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu was chosen for the post, even though he is unable to attend due to restrictions placed upon him by the Israeli government.
Students can also be members of one of the university's two students' unions, Glasgow University Union (GUU) and the Queen Margaret Union (QMU). These are largely social institutions, providing their members with facilities for dining, recreation, socialising, and drinking, and both have a number of meeting rooms available for rental to members. Students are currently barred from holding membership of both unions, although they can use most of the facilities of both provided they are a member of one. A significant attempt was made to introduce Automatic Joint Student Membership at the end of the 2003/2004 session, which would see all matriculated students automatically become a member of both unions. However, this ran out of time due to a technical failing in the tabling of a resolution to make the necessary constitutional changes at a Special General Meeting of the GUU. Towards the end of the 2004/2005 academic year a motion was put to the SRC suggesting a referendum on whether the student bodies should merge into a single Students Association. The motion was withdrawn but is likely to reappear in the future.
Sporting affairs are regulated by the Glasgow University Sports Association (GUSA) (previously the Glasgow University Athletics Club). Students who join one of the sports clubs, active at the university, such as the Shinty club, must join GUSA.
There is also an active student media scene at Glasgow University, part of but editorially independent from the SRC. There is a newspaper, the Glasgow University Guardian; a magazine, Glasgow University Magazine (GUM); a television station, Glasgow University Student Television (GUST); and a radio station, Subcity. In recent years, independent of the SRC, the Queen Margaret Union have published a fortnightly magazine, qmunicate, and Glasgow University Union have produced the GUU Independent. Many of those involved in these have won awards for their work and gone on to find a career in the media.
Alumni and faculty
See: List of Alumni and Faculty of the University of Glasgow In the histories of the arts and the sciences, the names of Glasgow scholars occur frequently and prominently.
William Thomson, Lord Kelvin (pictured), returned at the age of 22 to the University where he had studied and took up the chair of Natural Philosophy (Physics), a post he held for 53 years. Arguably the pre-eminent scientist of the nineteenth century, he enjoyed an international reputation for theoretical and practical research across virtually the entire range of the physical sciences. Adam Smith, economist, philosopher and author of The Wealth of Nations, was only 14 when he started as a student at Glasgow. In 1751 he returned as Professor of Logic, transferring to the Chair of Moral Philosophy shortly afterwards. Joseph Black taught both chemistry and medicine in the eighteenth century and introduced a modern understanding of gases. John Logie Baird, one of television's pioneers, was attending the University when the First World War intervened. James Watt conducted some of his early experiments with steam power while working at the University. William Macquorn Rankine, pioneer of modern thermodynamics, wrote the first authoritative textbooks on engineering. In more recent times the scientific ranks have included:
psychiatrist R D Laing who studied and worked at the University graduate and Regius Professor of Astronomy John Brown, Astronomer Royal for Scotland The University has been associated with six Nobel laureates:
alumnus Sir William Ramsay received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904 for his discovery of inert gases which established a new group in the periodic table. Frederick Soddy lectured at the University in the early 1920s. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1921 for his work on the origin and nature of isotopes. graduate John Boyd Orr campaigned for an adequate diet for the people, starting during the First World War; his food plan produced a better nourished population than ever before. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1949 for his work with the United Nations. graduate Sir Alexander Robertus Todd received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1957. His research led directly to the understanding of nucleic acids. Sir Derek Barton, Regius Professor of Chemistry in the mid-1950s, received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1969 for his work on conformational analysis. Sir James Black, who worked at the University's Veterinary School during the 1950s, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1988 for discoveries of important principles for drug treatments. A strong political strain has run through Glasgow's graduate ranks. Their number has included Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, eighteenth century revolutionary Thomas Muir and suffragette Elizabeth Lyness. In modern times they have included:
John Smith, former Leader of the Labour Party Donald Dewar, first First Minister of the Scottish Parliament Charles Kennedy, Leader of the Liberal Democrat party MPs Menzies Campbell, Margaret & Winnie Ewing and Sir Teddy Taylor. John Buchan, Lord Tweedsmuir, filled the political role as Governor General of Canada but distinguished himself, like many Glasgow alumni, by his writing. Other men and women of letters include:
James Boswell, eighteenth century biographer of Dr Samuel Johnson William Boyd, Whitbread Prize winner whose novels include A Good Man in Africa, Armadillo and Any Human Heart Christopher Brookmyre, whose novels include Quite Ugly One Morning and Be My Enemy Catherine Carswell, biographer of Robert Burns A J Cronin, author of The Citadel and the series of short stories which were later adapted for television as Dr Finlay's Casebook Janice Galloway, whose novels include Clara and Foreign Parts John Grierson, described as the 'father' of the documentary, and remembered for films such as Drifters and Night Mail James Herriot (Alf Wight), author of the series of novels which were adapted for television as All Creatures Great and Small Francis Hutcheson, the early eighteenth century philosopher, foreshadowed the utilitarianism of J S Mill Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury during the turmoil of the 1930s' abdication crisis dramatist Osborne Henry Mavor (James Bridie) and co-founder of the Citizens' Theatre in Glasgow William McIlvanney, Whitbread Prize winner whose novels include Docherty and the trilogy featuring Glasgow detective Jack Laidlaw Helen MacInnes, known as 'the queen of spy writers' Alistair MacLean, suspense writer, whose novels include Where Eagles Dare, The Guns of Navarone and Ice Station Zebra social historian Florence Marian McNeill, author of The Silver Bough Tobias Smollett, eighteenth century writer whose novels include Roderick Random and Humphry Clinker Eminent lawyers include: James Dalrymple, Viscount Stair, who provided seventeenth century Scotland with the first authoritative treatise on its law. John Wheatley, Lord Advocate and Lord Justice Clerk. Hazel Aronson, Lady Cosgrove, the first woman judge in the Court of Session and High Court.
Famous scholars associated with the university include Lord Kelvin, Adam Smith, James Watt, John Logie Baird, Colin Maclaurin, and Joseph Lister. Philosopher Francis Hutcheson studied at Glasgow, and protestant reformer John Knox may also have done so. In more recent times, the university boasts of having Europe's largest collection of life scientists.
Flats, halls and a student village
Around 3,500 students live in university residential accommodation. Approximately 2,600 are managed in partnership with Sanctuary Housing Association with all processing of applications and allocations handled by the University Accommodation Service. Accommodation choices include catered halls of residence, self-catering student apartments and flats Murano Street Student Village is the largest residence and houses 1,150 students. A new self-catered en-suite residence accommodating 400 students was built on the site of the old Queen Margaret Hall and opened in October 2002.
Sixteen per cent of students live in University owned or managed accommodation, 27% live in the parental home and another 56% own their own home or live in privately rented accommodation.
Sport, politics and a club for every taste
The University has four student organisations. It has two student unions, Queen Margaret Union and Glasgow University Union, the Students' Representative Council which represents the students in matters which affect their interests, and Glasgow University Sports Association which represents the views of all students involved in sport at the University.
The University's Sport & Recreation Service (SRS) operates the Stevenson Building and the Garscube Sports Complex, providing state-of-the-art indoor and outdoor sport and recreation facilities. The SRS offers a comprehensive range of services at both sites including exercise classes, drop-in sessions, instructional courses, fitness assessments, induction sessions and exercise consultation. A sports bursary programme is in operation to assist elite athletes.