University of Dundee

In Dundee in 1881, Miss Mary Ann Baxter and her cousin, John Boyd Baxter - two of the famous Baxter family, who made their money from the Jute mills of the city - donated £140,000 to the creation of a college in Dundee. This was the beginning of the University of Dundee.

From the start it was an institution that stood out. Instead of professors with ivory tower backgrounds, it employed bright young people who realised that to compete in the modern world, Great Britain needed to improve its technological output. William Peterson, who was a Latinist and Scholar, became the inaugural Principal in 1882 at the tender age of 26. Patrick Geddes, who didn’t have a degree, was professor of botany and one of the foremost thinkers in the world.

Central to the institution's founding deed was that it should be used for "promoting the education of persons of both sexes, and the study of science, literature, and the fine arts”.