We often get enquiries about what individual courses comprised. From 1858, the annual University Calendar is usually the best source of information on this. For example, the Diploma in Psychiatry in 1936 is summarised as follows: The Diploma consisted of 325 hours of course time, broken into two parts. Part 1: 1) Anatomy and the […]

The 31 club was a small group formed by the Honours Classics graduates at the University in 1931, to “perpetuate friendships made by the members while they were Classical students at Edinburgh University”. They first met in May 1931 and thereafter regularly for the next four years. A small reunion in 1966 is next minuted, […]

We get a lot of enquiries from individuals who know or think that their ancestor did some teacher training at Moray House. The history of teacher training and of Moray House is quite complex, one of various small institutions merging and then merging again before eventually becoming part of the University. Depending on the time […]

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859 and attended Edinburgh University as a medical student from 1876 to 1881. A recent enquiry threw light on the establishment of this prize at his request. From information located in the minutes of the Senatus Academicus. 4th July 1902 A letter was read from the […]

Women were only allowed to graduate from the University following measures put in place following the Universities (Scotland) Act, 1889. The first female undergraduates at Edinburgh were admitted in 1892 and eight graduated in 1893, all of them having previously studied at classes given by the Edinburgh Association for the University Education for Women. By […]

The idea for new and improved medical buildings had been mooted since 1869 and letters in this bundle refer to the N[orth] College Street Improvement Committee. There are also letters from David Baxter from Kilmaron in Fife, who was to bequeath £20,000 to the University Building Scheme on his death. It was this bequest that […]

James Drever, born in Orkney in 1873, became a student at the University of Edinburgh in 1889, graduating MA before continuing to study medicine. After spending some time as assistant to the Professor of Education, he was appointed Combe Lecturer and placed in charge of the Psychology Department in 1918. In 1931 he became the […]

William Turnbull was born at Ancrum, Roxburghshire, 29 July 1834. On 22 October 1880, he and Thomas Wilkie had been working on the construction of the Medical School for about 2 years. That date found them working on the boiler house chimney and they sealed into the structure, a bottle containing their details, along with […]

This printed notice/advertisement, written in Latin, concerns the performance of an amateur production of a play which interestingly seems to involve a joint operation with some pupils of Kelso High School. It may well be one of the earliest surviving amateur playbills. Interest in the dramatic arts evidently continued at Edinburgh, and by the middle […]

The University Main Library is today in the middle of a major refurbishment, the first comprehensive work done to the building since it was built. Now an A-listed building, its origins were firmly rooted in the campus redevelopments of the late 1950s-1960s. This photograph shows a scene that is very much a turning point in […]