St Leonard's College
Welcome to St Leonard's College, the focus for postgraduates and researcher staff at the University of St Andrews.
This year is the 500th anniversary of the founding of our mediaeval college, only 100 years after the original founding of the University itself. St Leonard's College was established as a college for poor clerks of the Church of St Andrews, based on the older Hospital and Church of St Leonard within the Priory of St Andrews in 1512. Although College minutes start in 1710, the accounts date back to 1549 and include diet books from 1586-1743. So little seems to have changed over the centuries – what is in our pockets and our stomachs remains important! After falling on hard times during the eighteenth century, St. Leonard’s College was reconstituted as a postgraduate institute in 1972 to fulfill its current role.
This year is a particularly special year in that we plan, in collaboration with St Leonards School and the PG society, to celebrate this remarkable milestone with a number of events. I hope very much that you will actively participate in these events and, as a result, become part of the College’s varied and interesting history.
Within the Current Postgraduates of the University website, you will find information about the extraordinary number of lectures and seminars taking place in St Andrews, many of them by world-class scholars; an increasing array of internal and external scholarship opportunities; and some of the achievements of our current postgraduate researchers.
As Provost of St Leonard's College, I wish you every success in your studies and research and I hope that you will enjoy your time with us at St Andrews. I look forward to meeting and working with many of you during the coming year.
Malcolm MacLeod