Bartilmo Somerville

Bartilmo Somerville of Saughtonhall was the University of Edinburgh's first major private benefactor through his endowment of the Chair of Divinity in 1639.

The son of Peter Somerville, a rich burgess and bailie of Edinburgh, Somerville was one of the city's most successful money-lenders. He had accumulated an extensive private fortune which had permitted him to buy the local estate of Saughtonhall. The Chair of Divinity had been founded in 1620, following the separation of the roles of Principal and Professor of Theology. It soon began to attract private donations and bequests. Between 1618 and 1634, the Town Council received 8,475 merks from ten separate donors towards the upkeep of the Chair. These sums, however, were dwarved by the funds bestowed by Somerville.

In December 1639, Somerville mortified 26,000 merks to the University of Edinburgh, of which 20,000 were for the endowment of a Chair of Divinity, and 6,000 to buy Sir James Skene's house of Curryhill to serve as a dwelling for the Professor. The University proceeded to buy Skene's house and garden, which were located in the angle of the town wall behind the High School. In 1656, a new house was built on the College grounds by John Mylne, and the Town Council sold Curryhill to the Incorporation of Surgeons (who used it as their Hall until 1697).

The new house bore a Latin inscription commemorating Somerville's endowment. It read:

The City of Edinburgh had this monument erected to the memory of Master Bartilmo Somerville, a most generous Burgess of the City, who left in his will 40,000 merks for pious purposes in the City and in the College.

In the words of Michael Lynch, Somerville 'seems profitably to have combined piety and usury', not only endowing the Chair of Divinity but leaving 10,000 merks to the 'good cause of the Covenant'.

Sources

• Thomas Craufurd, History of the University of Edinburgh, from 1580 to 1646: To Which is Prefixed the Charter Granted to the College by James VI of Scotland, in 1582 (Edinburgh: Printed by A. Neill & Co., 1808)
• Andrew G. Fraser, The Building of Old College: Adam, Playfair & the University of Edinburgh (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1989)
• Sir Alexander Grant, The Story of the University of Edinburgh during its First Three Hundred Years, 2 vols (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1884)
• Michael Lynch, 'The Creation of a College', in Robert D. Anderson, Michael Lynch, and Nicholas Phillipson, The University of Edinburgh: An Illustrated History (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003), pp. 1-49.