GLASGOW AND ROBERT BURNS

AFTER the latest edition of my history of Glasgow appeared last week, I was contacted by a proud Glaswegian who noticed that I was about to start writing about the city in the 1800s.

He asked if, before I move into the 19th century, I could explain Glasgow’s role in the Scottish Enlightenment that was largely centred in Edinburgh in the latter part of the 18th century.

I have always maintained that the Scottish Enlightenment is one of the greatest periods of this nation’s history, and Glasgow played a fulsome part in that remarkable coming together of men of genius in many arts and sciences – particularly the latter.

Just like Edinburgh, there were prodigious literary societies and debating clubs and in terms of philosophy alone, I would argue that Glasgow led the national flowering of intellect.

Edinburgh and Aberdeen Universities played their role in the Enlightenment but it was Glasgow which proved to be an internationally-renowned centre for the development of Enlightenment thinking.

As I have previously noted, Francis Hutcheson, professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow University, was a towering figure in the early part of the 18th century and he directly influenced Adam Smith who held the chair of moral philosophy at the university for 13 years which he would later describe as the happiest days of his life.

When he published his Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759, students from across Europe flocked to study under him, and it was from his Glasgow lecture notes that he later wrote Wealth of Nations.

All the time the Scottish Presbyterian concept of a school in every parish was bringing forward ordinary men, and, sadly, very few women, who were ready for advanced study of many subjects. One almost incredible statistic proves how important Glasgow University became in the intellectual life of Scotland – in the course of the 18th century, the number of students rose fourfold so that by the start of the 1800s, there were 1,200 students enrolled, almost as many as Edinburgh.

They had wonderful teachers. John Millar, professor of civil law at Glasgow from 1761 to 1800, was a son of the manse whose book Origin of the Distinction of Ranks, published in 1778, was something of a follow-up to Smith’s Wealth of Nations. It advanced the theory of economic determinism, basically saying that the economic system decides all social relations, which paved the way for, among others, the philosophy that underpins Marxism. He also wrote the Historical View of the English Government and revolutionised the study of history by applying his social and economic analyses to events. Millar remains one of the great unsung heroes of Glasgow, but at least Professor John Anderson was lionised in his time and remains a giant in Glasgow’s development.

Another son of the manse who graduated from Glasgow University, Anderson was originally Glasgow’s professor of Oriental Languages but transferred to the professorship of Natural Philosophy – teaching sciences such as physics – and held that post for almost 40 years until his death in 1796.

His genius was to marry learning with practical applications in industry, and as a political Radical, he went out of his way to ensure that working people had access to the sort of education that we nowadays take for granted – his night classes with their many experiments were hugely popular.

He used so many fireworks that he gained the nickname Jolly Jack Phosphorus.

Through various inventions, such as a classic six-pounder cannon, he amassed considerable wealth and property and on his death in 1796, his will decreed that his money should go towards the foundation of an educational institution dedicated to serving science and technology, or “useful learning” as he called it.

We know the descendant of the Anderson Institution as Strathclyde University, and true to its founding principles, it remains one of the leading international technology universities in the world today. I will be charting the history of all of Glasgow’s universities later in this series.

It was Anderson who hosted Dr Samuel Johnson and his biographer James Boswell – a Glasgow University graduate – when they visited the city on their celebrated tour to the Hebrides. They stayed at the

The national poet was more often in the city than has been generally supposed

Saracen’s Head Inn, the city’s finest such establishment.

Robert Burns stayed at another inn – the Black Bull in Virginia Street – whenever he visited Glasgow and in the course of researching this column, I ‘discovered’ the lost story of how Glasgow missed its glorious cultural opportunity to be forever associated with our National Bard.

I reprint without alteration this episode from Burns’ life as recounted in the History of Glasgow by Robert Renwick and Sir John Lindsay. It’s at the point where Burns is trying to sell some poems to fund his new life in the slave trade in Jamaica.

“The national poet was more often in the city than has been generally supposed, and it was only by chance that the first edition of his work was not published there instead of at Kilmarnock.

“When, on a summer day in 1786, he came in over the beautiful old bridge which still stands in the glen at Cathcart, he had his poems in his pocket, along with an introduction to William Reid, a young man in the employment of Dunlop & Wilson, booksellers, printers, and publishers in Trongate.

“The young assistant recognised the merit of the poems. ‘Don’t talk of the West Indies, sir!’ he exclaimed, when Burns mentioned his project of going abroad, ‘Edinburgh, not Jamaica, is the place for you!’

“But neither Dunlop & Wilson, nor any other of the Glasgow printers, would undertake the issue – the Foulises were by that time out of business – and the poet, on his way home through Kilmarnock, made his arrangement with John Wilson, the printer there.”

So there you have it – the world-renowned Kilmarnock Edition of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, could have been the Glasgow Edition.

Next week I will reflect further on Glasgow’s cultural life at the turn of the 19th century and will look at how Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Glasgow’s own great poet, now largely forgotten, Thomas Campbell, all made their mark here.