Established at the Royal Technical College in 1920 under the auspices of the British Pharmaceutical Society and the Glasgow and West of Scotland Association of Chemists, the School of Pharmacy rapidly grew in prestige and fame becoming the largest School of Pharmacy in the UK in the span of a decade.

For most of the 1920s and 1930s Professor David Ellis worked as Superintendent of the School and Lecturer in Botany (pictured at the rear of our featured image), collaborating with Professor James Todd, Lecturer in Pharmacy and Materia Medica (at the rear, by the door). A number of women were also employed in the School as demonstrators and assistants, such as the botanist, Wanda Zamorska.

The student body and the number of classes taught grew steadily. The majority of the students were men, mainly ex soldiers discharged from service after the first world war and enrolling in courses with the aid of the Ministry of Labour. However, a significant number of women attended laboratories and classes at the School, as is evident from this photograph. Opening education to people from all walks of life was one of the most important legacies from Anderson’s Institution. Indeed, John Anderson, the founder, had expressed the hope in his will that the institution would be ‘the first regular institution in which the fair sex have been admitted… on the same footing as men’.

Pharmacy students could proceed to a B.Sc. in Pharmacy awarded by the University of Glasgow by attending qualifying classes like botany, pharmacy and materia medica, but a popular option was to take the qualifying examination from the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain.

Archives reference: OP 4/131 Royal Technical College students in School of Pharmacy laboratory, c.1920