Faculty of Arts

Foundation of the Faculty of Arts

A distinct Faculty of Arts was established in 1708, as the Regenting system was phased out. The original Chairs within it were:

• Mathematics
• Humanity
• Greek
• Logic and Metaphysics
• Moral Philosophy
• Natural Philosophy

18th-Century Chairs

In the course of the 18th century the following Chairs were added:

• Universal Civil History and Antiquities (1719)
• Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (1762)
• Practical Astronomy (1786)
• Agriculture (1790)

19th-Century Chairs

The 19th century saw the institution of the following Chairs:

• Music (1839)
• Technology (1855; abolished 1859)
• Sanskrit (1862)
• Engineering (1868)
• Political Economy (1871)
• Geology (1871)
• Education (1876)
• Fine Art (1880)
• Celtic (1882)
• History (1893)

When the Faculty of Science was created in 1893, the Chairs of Astronomy (previously Practical Astronomy), Engineering, and Geology were transferred to it.

20th-Century Chairs

Many new Arts chairs were created in the 20th century though others were transferred to the Faculties of Science and Social Sciences.

• 1901 – Scottish History and Palaeography
• 1918 – French
• 1919 – Accounting
• 1919 – German
• 1922 – Tait Chair of Natural Philosophy
• 1925 – Archaeology
• 1925 – Organisation of Industry and Commerce
• 1931 – Geography
• 1931 – Psychology
• 1947 – English Language
• 1948 – Architecture
• 1951 – French Literature
• 1954 – Medieval History
• 1954 – Modern History
• 1956 – Economic History
• 1962 – Hispanic Studies
• 1962 – Italian
• 1963 – Commonwealth and American History
• 1963 – Russian
• 1964 – General Linguistics
• 1965 – Masson Chair of English Literature
• 1965 – Saintsbury Chair of English Literature
• 1964 – General Linguistics
• 1964 – Arabic
• 1964 – Philosophy
• 1966 – Richard Lodge Chair of History
• 1970 – Applied Linguistics
• 1970 – Richard Pares Chair of History
• 1987 – Classics
• 1990 – Chinese

When the Faculty of Social Sciences was created in 1963, the departments of Economic Science, Education, Accounting, Organisation of Industry and Commerce, Psychology, Geography, Architecture, and Economic History were all transferred to it, as, subsequently, was the Department of Archaeology in 1993.

In 1966, the Chairs of Mathematics and both the original and Tait Chairs of Natural Philosophy were transferred to the Faculty of Science.

21st Century

Following restructuring in 2002, the university's nine Faculties were reconstituted as three Colleges, while Departments were reorganised and replaced by Schools. The Departments previously contained within the Faculty of Arts were incorporated in four Schools of the newly founded College of Humanities and Social Science:

• Arts, Culture and Environment (now replaced by the enlarged Edinburgh College of Art)
• History, Classics and Archaeology
• Literatures, Languages and Cultures
• Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences

Sources

• University Calendar