History

The Chair of Universal Civil History and Greek and Roman Antiquities, the first of its kind in Scotland, was founded in 1719.

Foundation of the Chair

On 28 August 1719, the Town Council of Edinburgh passed an order establishing a Professorship of Universal History at Edinburgh University. The Council noted that despite ‘being very much esteemed and the most attended of any one profession at all the Universities abroad’, history teaching was ‘yet nowhere set up in any of our Colleges in Scotland’. The explicit desire to remodel Scottish universities along European lines is consistent with the programme of reforms introduced by William Carstares (1649-1715), during his term as Principal of Edinburgh University from from 1703 to 1715. Although Carstares had recently died, University historian Sir Alexander Grant (1826-1884) suggests that the Council was carrying out measures urged before his death. It is no coincidence, he argues, that their choice – announced on the same day -- fell upon a protégé and intimate of Carstares in Charles Mackie (1688-1770).

Subject Areas

As his title indicates, Mackie's remit was extensive, encompassing Western History, Scottish History, and Greek, Roman, and British Antiquities. Mackie’s conception of the historian’s duties was exceptionally broad, and his courses covered many topics later taught by Professors of Constitutional History, Roman Law, and Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. Mackie was a popular and influential lecturer whose pupils included such future luminaries of Edinburgh University as William Robertson (1721-1793), Alexander Monro ''secundus'' (1733-1817), and John Home (1722-1808).

In 1753, ill-health led Mackie to request that the Town Council appoint John Gordon (1715-1775) as assistant professor. Gordon himself resigned within a year, but the appointment of William Wallace (d. 1786) on 23 December permitted Mackie to retire from teaching. He nonetheless remained co-holder of the Chair until 1765 when he finally resigned in favour of John Pringle (1741-1811). It appears that Pringle (like Gordon and Wallace before him) performed his duties in a somewhat perfunctory fashion. For twenty years before 1780, no lectures were given from the Chair, though it appears that payment had also been irregular.

The chair was revived through the teaching of Alexander Fraser Tytler (1747-1813), Lord Woodhouselee, who held the Chair from 1780 to 1801. In his course of lectures, published as Elements of General History (1801), he traced the history of civilization from the earliest ages to the present age, a subject of vital interest to some of the finest minds of Enlightenment Scotland, including William Robertson (1721-1793) and Adam Ferguson (1723-1816). His lectures were also a major formative influence on the historical theories of the young Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). His classes were small, however, as the subject was not part of any curriculum and was not thought useful for professional purposes. By the time he was succeeded by his son William Fraser Tytler

Chair Holders

• Charles Mackie (1688-1770) - 1719-1765
• John Gordon (1715-1775) - 1753-1754
• William Wallace (d. 1786) - 1754-1765
• John Pringle (1741-1811) - 1765-1780
• Alexander Fraser Tytler (1747-1813) - 1780-1801
• William Fraser Tytler (1777-1853) - 1801-1821
• Sir William Hamilton (1788-1856) - 1821-1837

Archives

• Papers of Professor Charles Mackie
• Laing Collection

Sources

• Andrew Dalzel, History of the University of Edinburgh from its Foundation, 2 vols (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1862)
• Sir Alexander Grant, The Story of the University of Edinburgh during its First Three Hundred Years, 2 vols (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1884)
• L. W. Sharp, 'Charles Mackie, the First Professor of History at Edinburgh University', Scottish Historical Review, 41 (1962), 23-45.