Town Council

A unique element in the history of Edinburgh University is the major role played by the Town Council of Edinburgh in its foundation and governance.

The Foundation of Edinburgh University

Following Bishop Robert Reid’s bequest of funds to found a college of higher learning in Edinburgh in his will of 1558, the Town Council of Edinburgh was determined to establish a university in the capital. In August 1562, they thus petitioned Mary, Queen of Scots to grant them the site of the former Collegiate Church of Mary in the Fields (or Kirk o’ Field) ‘to build a school’. Eventually, in a charter of 13 March 1567, Mary granted all monastic property in Edinburgh to the Town Council, but stipulated that it would be for the support of Protestant ministers and the poor, and that all present incumbents would enjoy a life-rent of the benefices. Little further progress was made over the years of civil conflict which followed Mary’s abdication in 1568, and in the face of opposition from the Bishops of Aberdeen, Glasgow, and St. Andrews who opposed the establishment of an institution which might compete with the universities already established in their dioceses.

Plans to establish a university were eventually revived in the late 1570s, thanks to the efforts of James Lawson (1538–1584), first Minister of the Kirk of Edinburgh, and allies such as advocate Clement Litill (founder of Edinburgh University Library), and his brother William Litill, future Provost of Edinburgh. The Town Council set up a committee in 1579 to investigate the possibility of siting a school in or near the old Trinity Collegiate Kirk, and when this plan was thwarted, reverted to the original plan of siting the college at Kirk o’ Field, which the Town Council was finally able to purchase in 1581.

The temporary abolition of the episcopacy between 1580 and 1584, aided the Council’s scheme, by neutralizing the opposition of the Bishops of Aberdeen, Glasgow, and St Andrews. In April 1582, James VI, petitioned by the Town Council, issued two charters. The first (11 April 1582) empowered the Town Council to recover the money bequeathed by Reid for establishing a college, which remained unpaid by his heirs. The second (14 April), extended Mary’s charter of 1567 to permit the town to use monastic properties for educational purposes, empowered the Council to appoint and remove professors and to build houses for their accommodation, and ratified the sale of Kirk o’ Field to the Town. The Town Council proceeded to refurbish Hamilton House on the Kirk o’ Field site, fitting it with class-rooms, a college hall, and seventeen sleeping chambers for students.

Appointment of First Regent and Opening of University

The Town Council next looked for a regent who, in the first instance, would be solely responsible for all teaching and administrative duties. At the recommendation of James Lawson, they turned to Robert Rollock (1555-1599), who had been educated at St. Andrews University and employed there as a Regent of Philosophy since 1580. Having responded favourably to Lawson’s overtures, Rollock was interviewed by the Town Council and appointed Regent, initially for a one-year period, on 14 September 1583. On 16th October 1583, the Town Council appointed a committee to devise a curriculum for a four-year Master of Arts degree in consultation with Rollock. Next, the Town Council and Rollock devised an entrance examination on 11 October 1583, leading to the official opening of the College only three days later 14 October 1583. The Town Council would retain ultimate authority for appointing staff, approving curricula, and administering examinations until 1858.

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)
• Sir Alexander Grant, The Story of the University of Edinburgh during its First Three Hundred Years, 2 vols (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1884)
• Robert Kerr Hannay, 'The Foundation of the College of Edinburgh', in The History of the University of Edinburgh 1883-1933, ed. A. Logan Turner (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1933), pp. 1-16.
• James Kirk, 'Clement Little's Edinburgh', in Edinburgh University Library, 1580–1980: A Collection of Historical Essays, ed. J. R. Guild and A. Law (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Library, 1982), pp. 1-42.
• James Kirk, ‘Rollock, Robert (1555–1599)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) [[1], accessed 8 May 2014]
• 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.
• University of Edinburgh: Charters, Statutes, and Acts of the Town Council and the Senatus 1583-1858 (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1937)