William Hunter and the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, 1807 - 2007

by Lawrence Keppie

This book describes the life and achievements of the eighteenth-century Scottish physician William Hunter and outlines the history of the Museum named after him. William Hunter built up a wide-ranging private collection at his home in London, encompassing not only anatomical and pathological specimens related to his medical work, but also books and manuscripts, coins and medals, natural history specimens and artworks. On his death in 1783 he bequeathed the collection to the University of Glasgow where he had long ago been a student, and money to construct a Museum which opened in 1807.

The book utilises a wide range of source material, much of it previously unpublished, to tell the story of the Museum's development, the many subsequent additions to its holdings and, more recently, the construction of a new Hunterian Art Gallery which houses not only Hunter's own collection but also numerous works be James McNeill Whistler and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The Museum is celebrating its bicentenary in 2007.

There is a foreward contributed by Sir Kenneth Calman, Chancellor of the University of Glasgow, and formerly Government Chief Medical Officer and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Durham

216 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2007

About the author

Lawrence John Forbes Keppie is a Scottish historian and archaeologist. He attended Coatbridge High School and then studied classics at Glasgow University where he came under the influence of A.R. Burn, who first introduced him to epigraphy. After graduation he transferred to Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied Roman history and archaeology.

Professor Keppie started his digging career as a schoolboy on a medieval castle site in Cumbernauld, before moving on to participate in the Scottish Field School of Archaeology excavations at Birrens Roman fort under the directorship of Anne Robertson. The first excavation he directed himself was on a section of the Antonine Wall at Carleith in 1969.

Dr. Keppie was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1971, of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1978 and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1995. He served as the Honorary Secretary of the Glasgow Archaeological Society, Vice President and then the 45th President of the Society from 1988 to 1991. He also served as a curator at the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow University.

Dr. Keppie's academic career throughout has been focused on Roman Scotland, Roman Italy and the Roman army. He is now retired.