page_title: University of Edinburgh
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: University of Edinburgh / History / Development
caption_attribution_description: New College
context_page_description: The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1582, is the sixth oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's ancient universities. The university has five main campuses in the city of Edinburgh, which include many buildings of historical and architectural significance such as those in Old Town. The university played an important role in Edinburgh becoming a chief intellectual centre during the Scottish Enlightenment, contributing to the city being nicknamed the “Athens of the North”.
  The university is a member of both the Russell Group, and the League of European Research Universities, a consortium of 21 research universities in Europe. It has the third largest endowment of any university in the United Kingdom, after the universities of Cambridge and Oxford. The annual income of the institution for 2018–19 was £1,080.6 million of which £285.7 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £1,211.9 million.
  The alumni of the university include some of the major figures of modern history, including three signatories of the United States Declaration of Independence and nine heads of state and government.
context_section_description: In 1762, Reverend Hugh Blair was appointed by King George III as the first Regius Professor of Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres. This formalised literature as a subject at the university and the foundation of the English Literature department, making Edinburgh the oldest centre of literary education in Britain.
  Before the building of Old College to plans by Robert Adam implemented after the Napoleonic Wars by the architect William Henry Playfair, the University of Edinburgh existed in a hotchpotch of buildings from its establishment until the early 19th century. The university's first custom-built building was the Old College, now Edinburgh Law School, situated on South Bridge. Its first forte in teaching was anatomy and the developing science of surgery, from which it expanded into many other subjects. Bodies to be used for dissection were brought to the university's anatomy lecture theatre through a secret tunnel from the basement of a nearby house (today's College Wynd student accommodation). It was also through this tunnel that the victims of murderers William Burke and William Hare were delivered in the 1820s, and so was the body of Burke himself after his execution in 1829.
  Towards the end of the 19th century, Old College was becoming overcrowded and Sir Robert Rowand Anderson was commissioned to design new Medical School premises in 1875. Initially the design incorporated a Graduation Hall, but this was seen as too ambitious. A separate building was constructed for the purpose, the McEwan Hall, also designed by Anderson, after funds were donated by the brewer and politician Sir William McEwan in 1894. It was presented to the University in 1897.
  New College was originally opened in 1846 as a Free Church of Scotland college, later of the United Free Church of Scotland. Since the 1930s it has been the home of the School of Divinity. Prior to the 1929 reunion of the Church of Scotland, candidates for the ministry in the United Free Church studied at New College, whilst candidates for the old Church of Scotland studied in the Divinity Faculty of the University of Edinburgh. During the 1930s the two institutions came together, sharing the New College site on The Mound.
  By the end of the 1950s, there were around 7,000 students matriculating annually.
  An Edinburgh Students' Representative Council (SRC) was founded in 1884 by student Robert Fitzroy Bell. In 1889, the SRC voted to establish a union (the Edinburgh University Union (EUU)), to be housed in Teviot Row House. The Edinburgh University Sports Union (EUSU) which was founded in 1866. The Edinburgh University Women's Union was founded in 1906. On 1 July 1973 the SRC, the EUU and the Chambers Street Union merged to form Edinburgh University Students' Association (EUSA).
caption: The university's New College building
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