Archives and Special Collections: Education & teaching

Teacher training institutions developed in Glasgow from 1828, when the Glasgow Infant School Society established a model school for children aged 2-6 in the Drygate. As well as teaching the children, the staff instructed a number of adults as infant school teachers. Nine years later, Scotland’s first Normal Seminary (a term derived from the French école normale, meaning a school in which a rule or ‘norm’ could be laid down and imitated) was opened at Dundas Vale.

The year 2014 was the 50th anniversary of the granting in 1964 of the royal charter of the University of Strathclyde. However, the University can trace its history much further back, to 1796 with the foundation of Anderson’s Institution by John Anderson, Professor of Natural Philosophy at Glasgow University. Anderson left instructions in his will for the establishment of a new university in Glasgow which would be a place of ‘useful learning’ and of education for all, regardless of gender or social class. Today’s University of Strathclyde, still ‘the place of useful learning’, is the direct descendant of Anderson’s Institution.

Patrick Geddes’s Summer Meetings, best described as a kind of international summer school, teaching a wide range of subjects, developed a strong reputation amongst intellectuals throughout Europe.

Taking its name from the Scots word for schoolmaster, the New Dominie was published several times each year from the mid-1920s until 1966 and served both as a forum for serious writing and debate, and as an outlet for humorous observations and satire on all aspects of College life.

Miss Marie McCallum McDougall trained as a primary school teacher at the Glasgow Provincial Training College (later known as Jordanhill College of Education) from 1945-48. The course required her to spend several hours each week on placement in one of the local schools, observing the teachers’ classroom techniques.

The papers of William J. Ireland (1924-2002), graduate of the Scottish School of Physical Education and eminent teacher of Scottish country dance.

This month, we feature the recollections of Minnie Blair, née Craig (1865-1956). Born and brought up in Glasgow, Minnie attended St John’s Church David Street School until she was 18 years old. Her recollections, written down shortly before her death in 1956 and transcribed many years later by Minnie’s granddaughter, focus primarily on her schooldays, and offer a fascinating glimpse into the life of the Glasgow schoolchild in the mid-nineteenth century.