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The Finances of the University of Glasgow Before 1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Paul L. Robertson
Paul L. Robertson*
Affiliation:
Department of Economic History, University of Melbourne
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The scant support which the British government gave to English universities in the nineteenth century is well known. As late as 1900, only £25,000 in exchequer funds went to universities and university colleges in England, which were allotted grants ranging from £500 to £1,800 each per year. Although there were significant increases in later years, it was not until the interwar period that large-scale government financing was undertaken. Unfortunately, in this as in other branches of history, there has been a tendency to identify “English” with “British”, thereby obscuring the far greater aid which was given to the four ancient Scottish universities over the same period.

Type
Article IV
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , Winter 1976 , pp. 449 - 478
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 by New York University 

References

Notes

1. Green, V. H. H., The Universities (Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1969), pp. 182–3. Green's Chapter Nine, 'The Economic Aspects of the Universities”, is a good short summary of university finance in general. For recent accounts of the experiences of particular universities, see Sharp, P.N., “Finance”, in Gosden, P. H. J. H. and Taylor, A. J., eds., Studies in the History of a University 1874–1974 (Leeds: E. J. Arnold & Son, 1975); and Dunbabin, J. P. D., “Oxford and Cambridge College Finances, 1871–1913”, Economic History Review, 2nd Series, Vol. XXVIII, 1975, pp. 631–47.Google Scholar

2. E.g. “… by 1901 still only £25,000 per annum was going from the Exchequer into British universities.” Mathias, Peter, The First Industrial Nation (London: Methuen, 1969), p. 421. Similarly, when David Landes writes of “the British system” of education he seems to be referring only to conditions in England. The Unbound Prometheus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), pp. 340–8. While acknowledging that approximately £300,000 in Treasury and local government funds were directed towards English universities by 1912, Ivor T. James allots to the Celtic fringe only “Capital grants amounting to a few thousand pounds each … given to universities in Scotland and Wales.” “The University Grants Committee”, in Higher Education, an issue of Aspects of Education, Number Eighteen, March, 1975, p. 117.Google Scholar

3. At mid-year 1900, there were approximately 32,249,000 inhabitants of England and Wales and only 4,437,000 of Scotland. In making the calculation I have included only direct Exchequer grants and disregarded funds channelled to the universities as a result of local discretion.Google Scholar

4. Mackie, J. D., The University of Glasgow 1451 to 1951 (Glasgow: Jackson, Son and Company, 1954), pp. 4–10.Google Scholar

5. Royal Commission on the Universities of Scotland, 1826–30, Report (British Parliamentary Papers (hereafter B.P.P.), 1831.[310.] XII.), p. 226; Mackie, , op. cit. , pp. 25–8. Conditions were similar at the established and famous Oxford, where the average age of all students was 16.5 years in 1600 and only three per cent of the student body came from outside England and Wales. Stone, Lawrence, “The Size and Composition of the Oxford Student Body, 1580–1909”, in Stone, L., ed., The University in Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), Vol. I, pp. 29–33, 35–7, 74.Google Scholar

6. Mackie, , op. cit. , pp. 21–3. Unless otherwise noted, all values are given in pounds sterling. The Scottish pound depreciated steadily against sterling over the period. In the 1560's four Scottish pounds were the approximate equivalent of one pound sterling; by the time of the Union of 1707, the ratio had deteriorated to 12/1.Google Scholar

7. Ibid., pp. 65–6, 95–7. One mark was worth two-thirds (13s. 4d) of a Scottish pound.Google Scholar

8. Ibid., pp. 98–9. The Professorship of Medicine lapsed in 1646 and was not revived until 1712.Google Scholar

9. Ibid., Chapters VII–IX, passim. Google Scholar

10. Ibid., pp. 146–8; Royal Commission, 1826–30, Evidence, Vol. II, University of Glasgow (B.P.P., 1837.[93.] XXVI), pp. 44–5. The texts of many of these grants are given in Deeds Instituting Bursaries, Scholarships, and Other Foundations, in the College and University of Glasgow (Glasgow: George Richardson, 1850).Google Scholar

11. Hamilton, Henry, An Economic History of Scotland in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 18.Google Scholar

12. Mackie, , op. cit. , pp. 153–4, 206–8.Google Scholar

13. Engel, Arthur, “The Emerging Concept of the Academic Profession at Oxford 1800–1854”, in Stone, L., ed., op. cit. , p. 305.Google Scholar

14. Commission for Visiting the University of Glasgow, 1836–7, Report (B.P.P., 1839[175.]XXIX.), pp. 32–5; Royal Commission, 1826–30, Report, p. 234; Mackie, , op. cit. , p. 249.Google Scholar

15. Royal Commission, 1826–30, Evidence, pp. 44–5.Google Scholar

16. Idem., Report, pp. 228–9.Google Scholar

17. Idem., Evidence, pp. 450–7.Google Scholar

18. Ibid., pp. 317–20.Google Scholar

19. Idem., Report, p. 230.Google Scholar

20. Ibid., p. 259; Mackie, , op. cit., p. 248; Commission, 1836–7, Report, p. 25; Mattison, F. T., “Government and Staff”, in Gosden, and Taylor, , op. cit. Google Scholar

21. Royal Commission, 1826–30, Report, pp. 244–5, 248–9, 259; Davie, George, The Democratic Intellect (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1961), pp. 14–24.Google Scholar

22. Royal Commission, 1826–30, Report, pp. 244, 246, 277; Idem., Evidence, p. 316.Google Scholar

23. Mackie, , op. cit. , p. 268; Commission, 1836–7, Report, pp. 40–45; Royal Commission on the Universities of Scotland, 1876, Report (B.P.P., C.-1935, 1878), p. 125.Google Scholar

24. Commission under the Universities (Scotland) Act, 1858, General Report (B.P.P., 1836.[3174.] XVI.), p. xiv; “Abstract of the Annual Revenue and Expenditure of the College of Glasgow”, 1858–9, pp. 2–3.Google Scholar

25. Commission, 1858, Report, pp. vii, xv.Google Scholar

26. Ibid., pp. 17–8; Mackie, , op. cit., p. 269; “Abstract of the Revenue and Expenditure Account of the University of Glasgow”, 1866–7, pp. 2–3. Hereafter referred to as “Abstract”, these are bound in with the College and University Journals which are stored in the University of Glasgow Archives.Google Scholar

27. Commission, 1858, Report, pp. viii–xiii.Google Scholar

28. Ibid., pp. xiv–xvii.Google Scholar

29. “Abstract”, 1866–7 and 1884–5, pp. 2–3 of each; Glasgow University Calendar, 1890–91, p. 37.Google Scholar

30. Commission under the Universities (Scotland) Act, 1889, General Report (B.P.P., Cd. 276, 1900. XXV), pp. xxxiv–xxxvii.Google Scholar

31. Ibid., p. xxxviii; Mackie, , op. cit, pp. 304–5.Google Scholar

32. Minutes of the University Court, 1910–11, p. 3; “Abstract”, 1913–4, p. 19.Google Scholar

33. See below, Table VI.Google Scholar

34. Taken from statements in the “Abstracts” from 1847 to 1914.Google Scholar

35. Dunbabin, , op. cit. , pp. 639–41, 644.Google Scholar

36. Commission, 1889, Report, pp. xxxviii–xxxix.Google Scholar

37. The Chairs of Logic, Moral Philosophy, and Natural Philosophy, founded in 1727, were actually redesignations of three of the traditional Regencies, and not new positions.Google Scholar

38. Mackie, , op. cit. , pp. 251–2. The commissioners of 1826–30 subsequently proposed a similar reform which, like the remainder of their report, was never adopted. Ibid., p. 257.Google Scholar

39. Commission, 1858, Report, p. xvi.Google Scholar

40. Ibid. Google Scholar

41. Mackie, , op. cit. , pp. 293–4.Google Scholar

42. Commission, 1889, Report, p. xxxviii; Records of the Universities Commission, 1889–1900, West Record House, Edinburgh, File ED/9/88; list of lecturers in the University Ledger for 1900–01.Google Scholar

43. Minutes of the University Court, Vol. V, pp. 21–2, 39–40, 106–7, 122–5.Google Scholar

44. Commission, 1889, Records, File, ED/9/23.Google Scholar

45. Mackie, , op. cit. , p. 293.Google Scholar

46. Ibid., pp. 296–7.Google Scholar

47. Lists of lecturers in the University Ledgers for 1900–01 and 1913–4.Google Scholar

48. Lists of chairs and of their patrons are given near the beginning of each year's Glasgow University Calendar. Google Scholar

49. Mackie, , op. cit. , pp. 280–1.Google Scholar

50. Ibid. Google Scholar

51. Commission, 1876, Returns and Documents (B.P.P., C.-1935-III, 1878), pp. 200–01; Minutes of the University Senate, Vol. 95, pp. 295–300; Mackie, , op. cit. , p. 284; “Abstract”, 1882–3, Stock Account.Google Scholar

52. Sanderson, Michael, The Universities and British Industry 1850–1970 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972), pp. 167–71.Google Scholar

53. Robertson, Paul L., “Technical Education in the British Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering Industries, 1863–1914”, Economic History Review, 2nd Series, Vol. XXVII, 1974, pp. 222–35.Google Scholar

54. See lists of patrons in the Calendar for 1974–75, p. xlii; Commission, 1858, Report, pp. xvi–xvii.Google Scholar

55. Minutes of Senate, Vol. 96, pp. 204, 217–8, 232–3, 315; Vol. 97, pp. 126–7, 168–70, 213, 220, 254–7; Transactions of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland, Vol. 24, 1880–81, p. 183; Vol. 25, 1881–82, p. 11; Vol. 27, 1883–84, p. 63.Google Scholar

56. Sanderson, , op. cit. , pp. 160–2, 170, 174–6; Mackie, , op. cit., p. 304.Google Scholar

57. Minutes of the University Court, 1901–02, pp. 17, 23; 1902–03, Appendix I, p. 3; Appendix II, p. 6; “Abstract”, 1913–4, p. 4.Google Scholar

58. Davie, , op. cit. , p. xix.Google Scholar

59. Rothblatt, Sheldon, The Revolution of the Dons (London: Faber and Faber, 1968), pp. 65–75.Google Scholar