William Hunter and the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, 1807-2007

Abstract

Lawrence Keppie's volume is published to celebrate the bicentenary of the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery at the University of Glasgow, reflecting the fact that the first museum building to house the collection and make it available for study, teaching and viewing in Glasgow, was opened in 1807. The importance of this date is undoubted; as the ‘Introduction’ to the book makes clear, since 1807 the material has continued under the same ownership and governing body to be available to the public, making it the oldest such collection in Scotland. Nevertheless, the establishment of the Hunterian Museum represented only one stage in what was already a collection with a significant history. William Hunter, who had been a student at Glasgow and had gone on to become a distinguished anatomist and physician in London, bequeathed his collection to the University in 1783. It included very substantial groups of anatomical and pathological...