The Hunterian

The University of Glasgow’s Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery is home to one of the top five collections in Scotland, with over a million items.

The Hunterian is the legacy of Dr William Hunter, a pioneering obstetrician and teacher. A student at the University of Glasgow, he moved to London in 1741, where he found fame and fortune as a physician to the Royal family and teacher of anatomy and surgery. He built up a vast collection that was left to the University of Glasgow after his death in 1783 along with some money to build a museum to house his collection. The Hunterian opened its doors in 1807 making it Scotland’s oldest public museum and the first in the United Kingdom to have a Paintings Gallery.

The original collection bequeathed by Hunter has grown substantially. Among the stars are unique fossils, including dinosaurs, zoological collections, plants, rare coins, Roman remains from the Antonine Wall, material from Captain Cook’s expeditions, and paintings by Rembrandt, Chardin, the Scottish Colourists and the Glasgow Boys, works by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and J. McNeill Whistler, Lord Kelvin’s scientific instruments, and anatomical preparations, all of which are of local, national and international importance.

For further information on the Hunterian please visit:- http://www.hunterian.gla.ac.uk/
To search the Hunterian collections online database please visit:- http://www.huntsearch.gla.ac.uk/

Click on any of the thumbnalis below for more details:

Pederpes finneyae	Maori Knife	Cleopatra Coin
Unconformity	Hooke's microscope	Brain Coral