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Welcome
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The
University of Strathclyde has its origins in the 'Age of
Enlightenment' and the vision of one man, John Anderson,
Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Glasgow.
John Anderson died in January 1796 and bequeathed the bulk of
his property to the public for the good of mankind and the
improvement of science, in an institution to be denominated the
"Anderson's University". The intention of the founder was to
provide wider opportunities for people to obtain a liberal and
scientific education, and he had particularly in mind the
skilled artisans for whom, at that time, no provision was made.
The theories of Natural Philosophy were to be taught, but
instruction was also to include demonstrations by experiments.
Even more remarkable was Anderson's wish that his University
should be open to women.
The Andersonian, as it became known, was clearly well managed
and quickly attracted a large public to its lecture programme.
As a result of its success, the Institution's premises in John
Street became inadequate and in 1828 it moved to George Street
and at the same time, the Institution changed its name to
Anderson's University. By 1830 the University had chairs in
Natural Philosophy, Mathematics and Chemistry and it continued
to recruit talented members of staff such as Thomas Graham, the
Professor of Chemistry who would later formulate the law of the
diffusion of gases, which bears his name. The University's
Medical School by this time had chairs in Anatomy, Surgery,
Materia Medica, Midwifery and the Practice of Medicine. It was
building up an impressive reputation and among its alumni was
David Livingstone.
Glasgow flourished during the Victorian era, and the rapid
industrial and commercial development of this period produced a
great demand for education at all levels. A number of important
new institutions came into being, including in 1837, the Normal
Seminary (for training teachers) and, in 1847, the Athenaeum
(which provided commercial education).
The Glasgow & West of Scotland Technical College was soon a
recognised centre of excellence in technical education with a
world-wide reputation, noted for its innovative curriculum and
its teaching in such areas as Electrical Engineering,
Shipbuilding, Architecture, Physics and Technical Chemistry. Its
accommodation was, however, incapable of sustaining its rapidly
increasing student population and a major building programme was
launched. The new building on George Street was, on its
completion in 1910, the largest in Europe dedicated to technical
education. In recognition of the institution's reputation, the
College was authorised to change its name to the Royal Technical
College in 1912 and the George Street building still bears the
name `The Royal College'.
The Royal Technical College consolidated the reputation of its
institutional predecessors. Typically innovative, it opened a
Department of Industrial Administration in 1947 which began
residential courses in Management Studies. In 1956 the College
became the Royal College of Science and Technology (RCST).
The 1960's was a period of expansion in the provision of Higher
Education in the UK, spearheaded by the recommendations of the
influential Robbins report (1963). Robbins made an important
recommendation which would affect the speed with which the new
university would be accepted and in August of the 1964, the
institution received its Royal Charter and became the University
of Strathclyde.
The new University now included Departments in Commerce, Law,
Accountancy and other business-related subjects, in addition to
its traditional areas of expertise in the sciences and
technology. The late 1960s and the early 1970s saw the
construction of several new academic buildings, while the 1980s
witnessed the creation of a campus village, designed, in
particular, to meet the needs of a burgeoning community of
overseas students. By 1990 the University was organised into
four Faculties: Arts and Social Studies, Business, Engineering
and Science and had become the third largest University in
Scotland and one of the largest in the UK, with a world-wide
reputation for its teaching and research.
The University continues even today, to grow through
amalgamation and merger. In the early 1990s, the erosion of the
`binary line', which separated the universities from other
Higher Education bodies prompted a number of institutional
realignments. Jordanhill College of Education, which had a long
and illustrious history stretching back to the Normal Seminary
(1837) and beyond, opened discussions with the University which
culminated in a merger of the two in 1993, creating a second
campus and a fifth faculty.
Today the University has in excess of 12,400 full-time students
and approximately 1,600 part-time students, bringing the total
full-time equivalent population to almost 14,000. The full-time
students include some 9, 900 students at undergraduate and 2,500
students at postgraduate level, and a high proportion of the
student population is aged 21 years or over. At the end of the
1996 academic year the University had over 3,700 employees
including 1,600 academic and academic-related staff.
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