Lord Kelvin and Glasgow University

Abstract

THE installation of Lord Kelvin as Chancellor of Glasgow University, which took place in the Bute Hall on Tuesday, is an event which has few, if, indeed, it has any, precedents in the recent annals of our universities. The Chancellor is the head of the whole university, but in practice he is rarely present except on ceremonial occasions, and a great part of the work which he has had to do officially is done for him in Scotland, as it is at Oxford, Cambridge, London, or in the newer English universities, by the Vice-Chancellor. Many occasions arise, however, when it is of importance to the universities concerned that statesmen, such as the Prime Minister, who is Chancellor of Edinburgh, Mr. Chamberlain, who is Chancellor of Birmingham, Lord Rosebery, who is Chancellor of London, and Lord Spencer, who is Chancellor of Manchester, should represent their universities in Parliament or elsewhere, and such men have usually been elected not so much on account of their own connection with the universities they preside over as of the eminent place they have taken in the State, and the weight which must on all occasions be attached to their considered opinions. Lord Kelvin has been connected with the University of Glasgow since his early boyhood, he has spent his life within her walls, and he built up his enduring fame during the fifty-three years when he was professor of natural philosophy in the university.