Below is a history of the University of St Andrews. If you would like to find out more for yourself, you could visit the Museum of the University of St Andrews (MUSA) on the Scores. You can also read about the history of the University coats of arms, the University’s historic Chapels and the University’s collections on the University website.
In the late 14th century, the Great Schism divided Christendom’s allegiance between the Roman and Avignon Popes. Scotland’s staunch support of the apostate variety meant that her students were barred from first the English universities and then the French. As Scotland’s ecclesiastical ‘metropolis,’ St Andrews had already established itself as a place for education; in 1409/10, a group of Masters, most of whom were graduates at the University of Paris, began to teach there. This educational experiment was a success; in February 1411, Bishop Wardlaw of St Andrews granted a charter, thus formally founding the University. In August 1413, the anti pope Benedict XIII confirmed the institution with all the privileges of a University; the arrival of this papal charter in St Andrews the following February occasioned much celebration. The bearer, Henry Oglivy, M.A., was welcomed by the city bell ringing, and there was a mass in the Cathedral involving over 400 clergy, followed the next day by rejoicing in a far less spiritual manner.
The new University was a society of “Doctors, Masters and Scholars” organized against heresy; all were originally entitled to participate in the election of the Rector, the resident head of the University. Above him stood the University’s Chancellor, the titular head, who exercised general supervision from without. The office was helped by the Bishops/ Archbishops of St Andrews until the episcopacy was abolished in 1689. Many important privileges were granted to the new University by its foundation charter, but the fledgling University lacked buildings and, more importantly, endowments. Early lectures were given in the homes of the Doctors and Masters, but in 1418 Robert of Montrose gave the University property, near the site of Lower Parliament Hall, which became the College of St John. Adjoining buildings were given to the Faculty of Arts in 1430 by Bishop Wardlaw for use as a common hall. These were known as the Pedagogy.
St Salvator’s College was founded in August 1450 by Bishop Kennedy for the teaching of Arts and Theology. The University’s oldest surviving buildings, such as St Salvator’s Chapel belong to it. In 1512, Prior John Hepburn and Archbishop Stewart raised the old hospital and church of St Leonards to the status of a college as “an impregnable rampart of Doctors and Masters to resist heresy.” Due to its close connections with the priory, poverty was a prerequiste for admission to this college.
Despite increased revenues, the Pedagogy languished for many years; it was elevated to collegiate status and became St Mary’s College by Archbishop James Beaton in 1537. It’s mission was originally to provide instruction in “Theology, Canon and Civil Law, Physics, Medicine and other liberal disciplines.” However, when the University was reorganized in 1579, it was restricted solely to the teaching of Theology.
The University and the city of St Andrews fell into decline after the revolution of 1688. As a means of saving money, the buildings of St Leonard’s College were sold, its revenues distributed to the professors of the other two colleges. St Leonard’s and St Salvator’s College were amalgamated in 1747, and continue to exist to this day under the name of the United College of St Salvator and St Leonard.
Samuel Johnson and James Boswell visited in 1773, and the former, noting that there were fewer than one hundred students here, lamented the University’s fall: “The dissolution of St Leonard’s College was doubtless necessary; but of that necessity there is reason to complain. It is surely not without just reproach that a nation, of which the commerce is hourly extending, and the wealth increasing, denies any participation to its literary societies; and while its merchants or its nobles are raising palaces, suffers its universities to moulder in dust.”
The 19th Century was a period of great expansion and reorganisation. The Universities (Scotland) Act of 1858 set up the University Court with the Lord Rector as its convenor . The 1890 act extended the Court’s power and also recognised the recently formed Students’ Representative Council. Women were finally admitted as full members of the University in 1892.
In 1881, Mary Ann Baxter of Balgavies founded University College, Dundee: it became a constituent part of the University in 1890. In 1953, it was amalgamated with the Conjoint Medical School, the Dental School, and the Dundee College of Economics to form Queens College. In 1967, however it received its own independent charter and became the University of Dundee. In this process Dundee effectively acquired St Andrew’s departments of law, medicine, dentistry and engineering. St Andrews was therefore left with Arts, Science and Divinity.
This era represents a low point for the University. However in the last 30 years the University has experienced something of a resurgence. In 1973, St Leonard’s College was revived to cater for the needs of postgraduate students. While the Government’s “rationalisation” of universities in 1981 led to the closing of three good departments, the subsequent twenty years have seen the University continue to increase in the range of subjects taught, albeit ones of a more vocational variety, such as Management and Computer Science. The last of the major organizational changes came in 2002 when the University availed itself of its ancient right to offer degree programs in medicine, leading to the establishment of a separate Faculty of Medicine.
In 2009, St Andrews became the first Scottish ancient to appoint a woman as Principal, recruiting Professor Louise Richardson from the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard, to lead it into its seventh century.
A (Brief) History of the Scottish Higher Education System
The history of the Scottish HE system goes back to Medieval foundations. In the 15th century Scotland boasted three Universities against two in England; these being St Andrews (founded 1411 by Papal Bull, a charter issued by a Pope), Glasgow (founded 1451 by Papal Bull) and Aberdeen (founded 1495 by Papal Bull). Edinburgh followed in 1583, founded by a Royal Charter.
There was little expansion in the Scottish Higher Education system for the next 380 years. England saw the addition of six civic (red-brick) Universities founded in the Victorian era (Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield) and a series of Colleges were created between the First and Second World Wars. However, these inter-war colleges (e.g Exeter, Newcastle, Hull, Nottingham) were not, at this time, Universities in their own right as they did not have the authority to award their own degrees.
A major turning point for Higher Education in both England and Scotland was the publication of the Robbins Report in 1963. The report concluded that, at that time, higher education was an elite system with fewer than 10% of school leavers entering Higher Education. There was a recommendation for the immediate expansion of Universities and increase in the accessibility of HE for all. Additionally, all Colleges of Advanced Technology should be awarded University status.
Nearly a dozen new English Universities were founded in the decade following the Robbins Report, and in Scotland four new Universities were established - Herriot-Watt, Strathclyde, Dundee and Stirling.
The next big shift in Higher Education took place in 1992. The Further and Higher Education Act removed the distinction between Universities on the one hand, and polytechnics and colleges of higher education on the other. In addition, it also devolved the funding of Scottish HE to a separate Scottish Funding Council. At a stroke this almost doubled the number of Universities in England and today there are 78 English Universities.
A corresponding explosion in University numbers was not seen in Scotland however. Indeed, only five additional Scottish Universities were created in the 1990s: Robert Gordon, Glasgow Caledonian, Paisley, Abertay Dundee and Napier. This takes the total of Scottish Universities to thirteen. This manageable number, combined with relative geographical proximity, means that there is good communication and collaboration amongst the Scottish HE sector, with umbrella bodies such as Universities Scotland being established.