The UniversitiesThe Universities
THERE are no fewer than three universities in Edinburgh - the University of Edinburgh (founded 1583), Heriot-Watt University (1966) and Napier University (1992).
The first of these, which was one of Scotland's medieval seats of learning, was founded by the town council of Edinburgh. Today it has more than 10,000 students and 1,500 staff. In the present century it has spread over a considerable geographical area, but it is fair to say that its heart remains the Old College, in South Bridge. It is not generally realised that students represent 25 per cent of the population of the Old Town.
The Old College, built in the classic style with a large quadrangle at its centre, was designed by Robert Adam and begun in 1789. Following Adam's death it was completed by William Henry Playfair. The large dome, one of the landmarks of the city centre, is by Sir Rowand Anderson and was added in 1883. The Old College building contains the Upper Library, generally regarded as one of the finest rooms in Edinburgh.
Also within the Old College is the Talbot Rice Art Centre, which
houses the Torrie Collection, a permanent display of sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century European painting and sculpture in Playfair's
magnificent gallery. The Talbot Rice centre is also a venue for
temporary exhibitions.
The McEwan Hall
The university has faculties of arts, divinity, law, medicine, music and science. The medical school has a worldwide reputation. It was founded about 1690, but the present buildings in Teviot Place are nineteenth century, as are many of the other university buildings in the area. The McEwan Hall (1897), by Sir Rowand Anderson, is a fine example.
In the present century the university has also developed on two additional sites - at King's Buildings, West Mains, to which the faculty of science moved in 1928; and in George Square, after the Second World War, when the university erected a number of high-rise buildings that provoked heated argument at the time.
Heriot-Watt University, whose spacious, modern campus is at Riccarton, to the west of the city, was incorporated in 1966 but possesses a long technological pedigree. Founded in 1821 as a School of Arts and Mechanics Institute, it became in 1854 the Watt Institution and School of Arts, and from 1885 was the Heriot-Watt College until its elevation to university status in 1966.
Its Science Park has a close working relationship with commerce, having pioneered Britain's first research park for use by both industry and the university. Many of the Heriot-Watt students come from abroad (there is a strong connection with Norway, for example).
Napier University (1992) began life as Napier College of Science and
Technology in 1964. Located in a number of buildings in the south and
west of the city - Merchiston, Craiglockhart, Marchmont, Morningside
and Sighthill - Napier is one of the largest higher education
institutions in Scotland (more than 9,000 students, of whom about
5,600 are engaged in full-time study). The university is named after
John Napier (1550-1617), the man who invented logarithms and the
decimal point. Napier was born and made his home in Merchiston Castle,
a fifteenth-century tower house which, very fittingly, has been
conserved and incorporated in the design of the modern buildings on
the Merchiston campus.
