University of Edinburgh

Template:Infobox Ancient Scottish University

The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a renowned centre for teaching and research in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is one of the ancient universities of Scotland and is amongst the largest and most prestigious in the United Kingdom. The University of Edinburgh is a member of the Russell Group of large, research-led British universities. It is also the only Scottish university (and the only British university apart from Oxford and Cambridge) to be a member of both the Coimbra Group and the LERU: two associations of leading European universities. The latest university rankings of around 120 British institutions (published by the Guardian and Times newspapers in 2005) place Edinburgh tenth and twelfth in the UK, respectively.

Contents

1 History

2 Location

3 Alumni and faculty

3.1 Politics
3.2 Sciences
3.3 Arts
3.4 Miscellaneous

4 See also

5 External Links

History

The University was established by a Royal Charter granted by James VI in 1582. This was an unusual move at the time, as most universities were established through Papal bulls. What makes the University of Edinburgh even more unusual is the fact that its funding came the following year from the Town Council, making it in many ways the first civic university, known as the "Tounis College". It became the fourth Scottish university in a period when the much more populous and richer England had only two. By the 18th century Edinburgh was a leading centre of the European Enlightenment and one of the continent's principal universities.

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The University's Robert Adam designed Old College building, home of its Law School

Before the building of Old College designed by Robert Adam, the University of Edinburgh did not enjoy a custom built campus and existed in a hotchpotch of buildings from its establishment until the early 19th Century. The university's first custom built building was the magnificent Old College, now the School of Law, situated on South Bridge. Its first forte in teaching was anatomy and the developing science of surgery, from which it expanded into many other subjects. From the basement of a nearby house ran the anatomy tunnel corridor. It went under what was then North College Street (now Chambers Street), and under the University buildings until it reached the University's anatomy lecture theatre, delivering bodies for dissection. It was from this tunnel that the body of William Burke was taken after he had been hanged.

Towards the end of the 19th century, Old College was becoming too cramped and so Robert Rowand Anderson was commissioned to design a new Medical School premise in 1875. The medical school was more or less built to his design and was completed by the addition of the awe inspiring McEwan Hall in the 1880s.

The building now known as New College was originally built as a Free Church college in the 1840s and has been the home of Divinity at the University since the 1920s.

In addition, the University is responsible for a number of historic and modern buildings across the City, including the oldest purpose-built concert hall in Scotland, and the second oldest in use in the British Isles; St Cecilia's Concert Hall, Teviot Row House which is the oldest purpose built Student Union Building in the world and the handsomely restored 17th-century Mylne's Court student residence which stands at the head of Edinburgh's Royal Mile.

Edinburgh's Library pre-dates its University by three years. Founded in 1580, its collection has grown to become the largest university library in Scotland with over 2 million periodicals, manuscripts, theses, microforms and printed works. These are housed in the main University Library building in George Square - the largest academic library building in Europe - and an extensive series of Faculty and Departmental Libraries. The two oldest Schools - Law and Divinity - are both well-esteemed in their respective subjects, with Law being based in Old College, and Divinity being based in New College, on the Mound, just in front of the temporary home of the Scottish Parliament. Students at the university are represented by the Edinburgh University Students' Association, EUSA, comprising Edinburgh University Union (EUU) which was founded in 1889 and the Student Representative Council (SRC), founded in 1884 by Robert Fitzroy Bell.

Edinburgh University also boasts a student newspaper (Student) founded by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1887.

In 2002 the University was re-organised from its 9 academic faculties into three 'Colleges'. While technically not a collegiate university, it now comprised of the Colleges of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS), Science & Engineering (SCE) and Medicine & Vet Medicine (MVM). Within these Colleges are 'Schools' - roughly equivalent to the departments they succeeded. (However, it is notable that individual Schools have a good degree of autonomy regarding their finances and internal organisation) This has brought a certain degree of uniformity (in terms of administration at least) across the University.

Along similar lines, all teaching is now done over two semesters (rather than 3 terms) - bringing the timetables of different Schools into line with one another, and coming in to line with many other large universities. (notably in the US, but to an increasing degree in the UK as well)

Location

Edinburgh is one of the greenest and most architecturally beautiful cities in Europe often referred to as the "Athens of the North". The University plays an integral role in the city, contributing to its vibrant atmosphere. With the expansion in topics of study the university has expanded its campus such that it now has seven main sites:

George Square and surrounding streets in the southern central area of the city is the oldest region, occupied primarily by the schools of art, social science, medicine and law, as well as the main university library. It is also used for teaching first year undergraduates in science and engineering. Nearby are the main EUSA buildings of Potterrow, Teviot Row House (the oldest custom-built students union in the country) and the Pleasance Societies Centre.
The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies at Summerhall, at the East end of The Meadows. This houses Veterinary Medicine.
The Kings Buildings, further south, houses most of the Science and Engineering schools including a Biology School that is a world leader in genetics. The Scottish Agricultural College (SAC) and British Geological Survey (BGS) also have a presence on campus.
The School of Divinity on the Mound, parts of which are also used by the Church of Scotland.
Moray House School of Education just off the Royal Mile, used to be the Moray House Institute for Education until that was acquired by the University in 1998. The University has since extended it and agglomerated it with its own Sports Institute along with a large new building to house the expanding Institutes. The Moray House campus is being amalgamated with the George Square campus through simple ownership of much of the intervening land.
The £40 million Medical School at the New Royal Infirmary in Little France, in the southeast of the city, was opened by the university's chancellor HRH The Duke of Edinburgh in 2002 as a joint project between private finance, the local authorities and the University to create a large modern hospital, veterinary clinic and research institute and thus the University is currently (2003) in the process of moving its Veterinary and Medical Faculties there (and quite possibly also the School of Nursing).
Pollock Halls, adjoining Holyrood Park to the east, provides accommodation (mainly half board) for the majority of students in their first year. Two of the older houses in Pollock Halls were demolished in 2002 and a new building has been built in their place, leaving a total of ten buildings. Most other students in the city live in private flats in the Marchmont, Newington, Bruntsfield, New Town and Leith areas, although some university-owned flats are also available there.

Alumni and faculty

The University has had many famous alumni, including:

Politics

Gordon Brown, British Chancellor of the Exchequer
Robin Cook, former Foreign Secretary
Tessa Jowell, Secretary of State for Culture, Media, and Sport
Lord Melville, statesman
Lord Robert Finlay, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain
Jennie Lee, former Minister for the Arts and founder of the Open University
Lord MacKay, Lord Chancellor
David McLetchie, Leader of the Scottish Conservatives
Lord Petty-Fitzmaurice, Chancellor of the Exchequer
Malcolm Rifkind, former Foreign Secretary
Lord John Russell, Prime Minister
David Steel, Leader of British Liberal Party and first Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament
Jim Wallace, Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats and Deputy First Minister
Charles Tupper, Prime Minister of Canada
Mike Synar, Former United States Congressman
John Witherspoon, signatory, American Declaration of Independence
Benjamin Rush, Signatory, American Declaration of Independence
Julius Nyerere, First President of Tanzania
Yun Po Sun, former President of South Korea

Sciences

Charles Glover Barkla, Nobel laureate in Physics
Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone
Joseph Bell, medic
Joseph Black, physicist and chemist
Sophia Jex-Blake, pioneer of medical education for women in Britain
Max Born, Nobel laureate in Physics
David Brewster, scientist
Charles Darwin, naturalist, author of the "Origin of Species"
James Dewar, chemist and physicist
Peter Doherty, Nobel laureate in Medicine
Klaus Fuchs, physicist
Archibald Geikie, geologist
James Hector, geologist
Peter Higgs, physicist, Emeritus Professor of Physics and father of the Higgs boson.
Charles Hutton, mathematician
James Hutton, the father of modern geology.
Robert Jameson, naturalist and mineralist
George Kelly, psychologist
Joseph Lister, introduced antiseptics into surgery
Colin Maclaurin, mathematician
David MacRitchie, archaeologist
James Clerk Maxwell, physicist and father of electromagnetics (The Maxwell Equations are fundamental to modern electrical and electronic engineering)
Roger Mercer, archaeologist
Robin Milner, computer scientist
Augustus De Morgan, mathematician and logician
Alexander Munro III, anatomists
Richard Owen, biologist and palaeontologist
Robert Sibbald, Professor of Medicine
James Young Simpson, pioneered the use of chloroform in midwifery
Peter Guthrie Tait, physicist
Igor Tamm, Nobel laureate in Physics
Stephen Tweedie, computer scientist
John Walker, naturalist
William Withering, physician

Arts

Robert Adam, architect
Thomas Brown, philosopher
Thomas Carlyle, essayist and historian
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes author
J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan author
Adam Ferguson, philosopher and historian
Oliver Goldsmith, writer and physician
Sorley Maclean (Somhairle MacGill-Eain), Gaelic poet
David Hume, philosopher
James Mill, historian and utilitarianist philosopher
Peter Roget, author of the first Thesaurus
Sir Walter Scott, author and poet
Robert Louis Stevenson, writer
Dugald Stewart, philosopher

Miscellaneous

John Aikin, physician and writer
John Brown, physician and author
George Chalmers, antiquarian and political writer
Henry Thomas Cockburn, judge
Daisy Donovan, Actor
Ian Rankin, author
Benjamin Constant, writer and politician
James Africanus Horton, First African Graduate from a British University
Allan Little, BBC Foreign Correspondent
A.S. Neill, educationalist
George Newlands, theologian
Lord Playfair, scientist and parlimentarian
Stella Rimington, former head of MI5
Piers Sellers , astronaut
Samuel Smiles, author and reformer

Hume and Maxwell both applied for teaching posts at the university, which refused to employ either.

External Links

University of Edinburgh (http://www.ed.ac.uk/)
Coimbra Group (http://www.coimbra-group.be) (a network of leading European universities)
Edinburgh University Students' Association (http://www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/)
Student newspaper (http://www.studentnewspaper.org/)
Edinburgh University historical tour (http://www.ed.ac.uk/history/)

Coimbra Group (of European research universities)
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