How did The Hunterian at the University of Glasgow evolve into a world-class cultural institution?
Harriet Gaston explores how the Hunterian Museum found its home within Sir George Gilbert Scott’s campus at Gilmorehill, and how each relocation helped shape one of Scotland’s most celebrated university museums.
Scotland’s Oldest Public Museum
From 18th-century London to 21st-century Glasgow, The Hunterian has continued to change and evolve with the city that surrounds it. Its origins lie in London’s Great Windmill Street, where Scottish anatomist, lecturer and obstetrician Dr William Hunter (1718–83) established a private medical school that also housed his substantial collections.
These collections were formed within the complex realities of 18th‑century Britain, a society shaped by colonial expansion and the exploitation of enslaved people. Hunter didn’t see his collections as treasures but rather as tools for learning, to be used, he said, “for the improvement of knowledge”.
On his death in 1783, Hunter left his collections to his alma mater, the University of Glasgow, along with the funds to build a suitable museum to house them.
The Hunterian was established in 1807, making it Scotland’s oldest public museum. This would be the first of several homes for The Hunterian collections, marking the beginning of an ongoing journey.
The first Hunterian Museum, built in the style of a neoclassical temple, stood near Glasgow Cathedral on the High Street as part of the University of Glasgow’s original site. When the University relocated to its present location in 1870, The Hunterian moved with it, beginning a new chapter in its history.
The Move to Gilmorehill
By the mid-19th century, the University of Glasgow’s High Street site was struggling under the weight of industrial Glasgow. Overcrowded lecture halls, increasingly polluted air and limited space made teaching and research increasingly difficult.
The decision to relocate to Gilmorehill in Glasgow’s leafy West End offered a fresh start, modern teaching spaces, and the chance to create a campus that reflected the Victorian ideals of learning and civic pride.
The Hunterian Museum was also feeling the strain of its unhealthy environment. The aging neoclassical building, once admired for its elegance, had started to show signs of physical decay and the interiors were reported to be dusty, cramped and gloomy.
The move to Gilmorehill offered the perfect opportunity to rebuild the Hunterian Museum in a more suitable environment, placing it at the heart of the new campus.
Designing the New Museum
The new Hunterian Museum was created as part of Sir George Gilbert Scott’s grand neo-Gothic design for the Gilmorehill campus.
The Museum occupied two large halls forming the north side of the east quadrangle and was paired with the University Library on the west. This arrangement provided symmetry and emphasised the intellectual partnership between books and objects.
The main hall, with its soaring ceilings and improved lighting, was dedicated to the natural history collections, featuring stuffed animals, birds, corals and fossils.
The upper hall, or balcony as we know it today, housed cultural collections including coins, paintings and manuscripts.
The entrance hall also displayed paintings alongside Roman antiquities, ethnographic artefacts, and statues of notable figures such as James Watt and Adam Smith.
Together, these spaces presented The Hunterian collections in a unified architectural setting.
The Great Transfer
Transferring The Hunterian collections was a massive undertaking. Over 17 lorry loads carried the collections to Gilmorehill, and remarkably, everything arrived without loss or damage.
Coins and medals were packed in iron safes and stored temporarily at the Bank of Scotland.
Anatomical and natural history specimens — including giraffes, rhinoceroses, and other animals — were transported across Glasgow. This extraordinary procession was immortalised in Jemima Blackburn’s celebrated watercolour, capturing the spectacle of Victorian science on the move.
By early 1870, the collections had reached their new home. The museum gradually reopened to visitors from 1877, marking a new era for The Hunterian as a centrepiece of the University’s cultural life.
New Homes for Growing Collections
The establishment of the Hunterian Museum on the Gilmorehill campus represented a shift from the neoclassical elegance of the old High Street building to the monumental Gothic grandeur befitting a modern university.
It provided improved facilities for teaching and research while preserving Hunter’s vision of a collection “for the improvement of knowledge”.
By the early 1900s, overcrowding had become a concern again, resulting in the dispersal of parts of the collections to other locations on campus. The anatomical and pathological collections moved to the new Anatomy building in around 1911. The zoological collections were transferred to the new Zoology Museum in 1923.
Fossil plants and other botanical materials were relocated to the Botany building in 1936, the books and manuscripts went to the new University Library in 1968, and the growing art collection was eventually rehoused in the purpose-built Hunterian Art Gallery which opened in the early 1980s.
The gradual dispersal created a network of specialist museums and departmental displays, reflecting the increasing scale and disciplinary breadth of The Hunterian holdings.
Legacy
The Hunterian Museum remained a cultural landmark but its relocation from the city centre to the interior of the University campus made it less visible to the public.
It was also overshadowed by opening of Kelvingrove Museum in 1901, which quickly became the city’s major civic attraction. Over time, as the collections became fragmented across several buildings, The Hunterian was perceived as an academic resource rather than a public institution.
However, the move also secured its future as Glasgow’s university museum, shaping the University’s cultural identity and placing The Hunterian at the heart of campus life.
Look out for the next part of this blog series, which explores the development of the Hunterian Art Gallery, and traces its evolution from modest beginning to a major cultural institution.
Thanks to National Lottery players, we are currently carrying out a crucial scoping project that will shape the future of our public-facing venues on the University of Glasgow campus, the Hunterian Museum and Hunterian Art Gallery. Find out more.
Stay up to date with all the latest news and stories from The Hunterian via our blog, or our website.
