Andersonian Institution (Glasgow)
앤더슨 학원 (글래스고)
An institution for practical “useful learning” founded in Glasgow in 1796 under the will of John Anderson, professor of natural philosophy at the University of Glasgow. Renamed Anderson’s University in 1828, it was reorganised in 1887 as the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College and became the University of Strathclyde in 1964.
In depth
Anderson left most of his estate to found a second university in Glasgow devoted to practical subjects, “for the good of mankind and the improvement of science, a place of useful learning”. The change of name to Anderson’s University in 1828 partly fulfilled that vision, but because the title of university had no legal standing the name was changed again in 1887 and the school became a technical college. It continued as the Royal Technical College from 1912 and the Royal College of Science and Technology from 1956, concentrating on science and engineering teaching and research.
Andrew Ure succeeded George Birkbeck as professor of natural philosophy, teaching chemistry and physics, in 1804. His evening lectures in chemistry and mechanics were a great success and inspired the founding of the École des Arts et Métiers in Paris and of a number of mechanics’ institutions in Britain. By 1830 Ure had resigned first his chair and then the institution, and moved to London as a consulting chemist. Alumni of the institution and its successors include the 1904 Nobel laureate in chemistry William Ramsay and John Logie Baird, inventor of the first working television.