Abstract
SIR JAMES IRVINE, principal and formerly professor of chemistry of the University of St. Andrews, reviewed the history of chemical teaching at the University in an address on December 6 before the University of St. Andrews Chemical Society. The story goes back, Sir James said, to 1808, when the University accepted a gift of £1,500 from Dr. John Gray, of Paddington, to institute and maintain a chair of chemistry at St. Andrews. This sum was totally inadequate to found the chair, and no appointment was actually made until 1840. While Sir David Brewster was principal of the University, the endowment was brought up to £2,700, and Dr Arthur Connell was appointed the first professor of chemistry. Connell, who became an authority on mineral analysis, was succeeded in 1862 by Prof. Matthew Forster Heddle. Heddle devoted his attention chiefly to mineralogy; among his students were James Stuart, afterwards the first professor of engineering at Cambridge, Francis Robert Japp, who became professor of chemistry at Aberdeen, William J. Matheson, an American who founded an entrance scholarship and a bursary for chemistry at St. Andrews, and Thomas Purdie, who was to succeed Heddle in the professorship.
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Chemistry at St. Andrews. Nature 147, 23–24 (1941). https://doi.org/10.1038/147023c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/147023c0