Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Sir Kenneth Calman
- Introduction
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations used in the Notes
- Dedication
- 1 William Hunter's Life and Career
- 2 Growth of the Hunterian Collection
- 3 ‘The Noblest Legacy upon Record’
- 4 A Temple of the Muses: the First Hunterian Museum in Glasgow
- 5 ‘This Place of Fascination’: the Impact of the Museum, 1807–70
- 6 A New Museum for a New University, 1870–1900
- 7 The Twentieth Century: War, Peace and Renewal, 1900–75
- 8 The Hunterian Art Gallery
- 9 Modern Times, 1975–2007
- 10 Overview: Meeting William Hunter's Intentions
- Postscript: Looking to the Future
- Notes
- Appendix: Catalogues of the Hunterian Collections
- Bibliography
- Index
- Plate section
3 - ‘The Noblest Legacy upon Record’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Sir Kenneth Calman
- Introduction
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations used in the Notes
- Dedication
- 1 William Hunter's Life and Career
- 2 Growth of the Hunterian Collection
- 3 ‘The Noblest Legacy upon Record’
- 4 A Temple of the Muses: the First Hunterian Museum in Glasgow
- 5 ‘This Place of Fascination’: the Impact of the Museum, 1807–70
- 6 A New Museum for a New University, 1870–1900
- 7 The Twentieth Century: War, Peace and Renewal, 1900–75
- 8 The Hunterian Art Gallery
- 9 Modern Times, 1975–2007
- 10 Overview: Meeting William Hunter's Intentions
- Postscript: Looking to the Future
- Notes
- Appendix: Catalogues of the Hunterian Collections
- Bibliography
- Index
- Plate section
Summary
‘A great inclination to do something considerable at Glasgow’
William resolved early on to seek to hold his collection together after his death, rather than have it dispersed in the customary fashion, as he had often observed happening in London. Indeed substantial parts of his own collection had been assembled through acquisition en bloc of material assembled by others, by purchase, gift or bequest.
In 1763 he approached Lord Bute's government with the proposal that he would finance the construction of a suitable building in London, to house ‘a perpetual school of anatomy’, if the government would donate a piece of publicly owned land. A number of locations were suggested. He deemed London ideal, as a ready supply of human bodies was to be had there. But he failed to receive a positive response.
In April 1765, presumably as a result of this feeling of rejection, he was contemplating leaving London and returning to Scotland. As he then wrote to his friend Cullen, ‘I have a great inclination to do something considerable at Glasgow some time or other’, and in a second letter written the following day observed:
You have been illused at Edinburgh as I have been at London. Could you make a sacrifice of the few more guineas you would receive by practice in Edinburgh and join with me to raise a School of Physic upon a noble plan at Glasgow? […]
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- Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2007