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 pressing 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 (1777-1853) in 1801, classes sometimes fell as low as 17 students in a year. William Fraser Tytler ceased to lecture at all after some sessions and eventually resigned in 1821.

His successor, Sir William Hamilton ((1788-1856) made a renewed attempt to revitalize the Chair, offering a 'historical survey of the relations of the political system of modern Europe and its dependencies', coupled with an overview of European literature. He also petitioned the Senatus Academicus to admit his subject into the Arts curriculum, but without success. In 1828, he wrote to the Royal Commission charged with reforming Edinburgh University, urging them to make attendance of the History class compulsory for the M.A. degree. So far with meeting with success, the Commission actually recommended the abolition of the Chair. Hamilton gave up lecturing in 1833, when the City of Edinburgh became bankrupt and was no longer able to pay his salary.

In 1836, Hamilton was transferred to the Chair of Logic and Metaphysics, and the following year George Skene (1807-1875) succeeded him in a post, which Sir Alexander Grant notes, 'had come to be regarded as a subsidiary and temporary appointment for advocates of a literary turn'. It is unsurprisingly, then, that Skene should resign in 1842 to take up the post of Sheriff-Substitute of Lanarkshire. The post was also something of a stopgap, for Skene's successor, the metaphysician James Frederick Ferrier (1808-1864), who left to assume the Chair of Moral Philosophy at St Andrews University in 1846.

The next professor, Cosmo Nelson Innes (1798–1874) was one of the nineteenth century's major historians of Scotland, pioneering a newly rigorous approach to studying historical records and source materials. His lectures accordingly focused on Scottish literature and proved exceptionally popular when Innes initially waived the course fee. His calculation that students would be happy to pay once their appetites where whetted proved unrealistic. The reintroduction of fees saw his class dwindle dramatically. Innes eventually renounced his efforts to make the course remunerative and gave up lecturing entirely.

In 1862, a radical reform was introduced by Executive Commission formed to implement the Universities (Scotland) Act 1858. The Commissioners issued an ordinance which changed the title of the Chair to History alone and divided it between the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Law. The Professor of History was required to deliver an annual course of forty lectures on Constitutional Law and Constitutional History which were a compulsory requirement for a Law degree. Innes took up these new duties, lecturing on English and Continental Constitutional History until his death in 1874.

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
• George Skene (1807-1875) - 1837-1842
• James Frederick Ferrier (1808-1864) - 1842-1846

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.