Historical Laboratory Photos

This page shows some old photos taken in the labs and corridors of the department. In the history section you may have read that our department has been renamed and rehoused multiple times over the past two-hundred years. Some of the earliest photos on this page (found in the University of Strathclyde archive) were taken in the Physical Laboratory of the Old Andersonian. As I (KW) understand it, this is the building of John Anderson's original university, which used to stand where the Royal College now stands.

Anderson's Institution

Founded under the Will of John Anderson (1726-1796), Anderson's Institution was established in 1796. In 1828 it changed its name to Anderson's University but in 1877 it was obliged to dispense with the title 'University' as it lacked a royal warrant - becoming instead Anderson's College. In 1887 it became the main component of the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College.

An important part of Anderson's University was its Medical School, established in 1799. In 1887 this became an independently run institution, finally being absorbed by the University of Glasgow in 1947.

Throughout its existence, Anderson's was frequently styled 'the Andersonian' (as in 'the Andersonian Institution' etc.).

Early 20th Century

From left to right: Andrew Scobbie, A MacDonald, Prof James Blyth, Prof. James Muir, Vincent J. Blyth. Physical Laboratory. Group photo in the Physical Laboratory of the "Old Andersonian". 1902.

Group photo in the Physical Laboratory of the "Old Andersonian". 1902 (scan KW)

The Royal Technical College Glasgow, Department of Natural Philosophy. Group photograph circa 1929 (scan KW)

The Royal Technical College Glasgow, Department of Natural Philosophy. Group photograph circa 1929. From left to right back row: C. Brewery (?) assistant mechanic, N.L. Nicol (MA, BSc), J.M. MacCaulay (BSc later PhD), John G. Strachan (MA later PhD and H.M. Chief Inspector), and F.J. Symon (later PhD). Front row: Malcolm Smith mechanic, Prof. James Muir, Associate Prof. Dougald B. MacQuistan, and J.S. Rankin (later Prof.).

The 1960s

Ted Fulton and Raymond Varcoe were technicians. Ted was the most dapper man around and was regularly assumed by students to be the HoD. In my (ISR) time, he worked in the mornings in the John Anderson building looking after lecture demonstrations etc, then on duty every afternoon over in the Royal College for the service labs.
	Stewart McLaren was a senior lecturer who died in service in 1977. He is seen here in the 1960s in one of the physics laboratories in the Royal College.

The construction of the John Anderson building in 1969

~1970

Some photographs in the Royal College taken by John D Ferguson who was a senior lecturer in the department of Computer and Information Sciences at Strathclyde. They were taken in the Royal College...just before the Physics Department moved to the John Anderson Building; the date would be round about 1970. Comment by JDF.

	(left to right) Technicians Jim Walls, Jimmy West and Steve Valor. This was taken beside the control panel of the larger of the two Theta Pinch experiments ...and I think the marks on the steel girders show that we were in the process of dismantling it to go over to the new building. Steve Valor was an outstanding technician ... With great engineering skills (instrument making) ...and an avid photographer. Steve taught me all I know about photography and introduced me to Rolliflex cameras. Unfortunately he died not long after this photograph from a tumour.
Pictures 2 and 3 show the small Theta Pinch that was in the neighbouring room. On this experiment we had attached the 'high speed shutter' used to sample the atom flux escaping from the plasma ...this in turn was examined by time of flight analysis. (Dr Don Kidd's experiment).

Shows myself as an eager young research student inside the Faraday cage used with the small Theta Pinch.

The 1980s

Some photographs in the Royal College and John Anderson building taken by Ivan Ruddock

	Lab class circa 1980.
Ted Fulton. These colour photographs were taken in the Royal College staff room circa 1980 before Natural Philosophy pulled out from the remaining teaching labs.
	Tom Boag circa 1980.
Prof Geoff Duxbury and June McPhail who was John Irving's secretary
	Bob Illingworth at the 6th National Quantum Electronics Conference in Brighton 20 Sept 1983
Phil Nicholson Entrance Info Session 13 Sept 83
	Willie Deuchars in his office (JA7.08) just before retiring in 1990.
Robin Preston (left) and Morton Jones (right) at the latter's retirement presentation, autumn 1994
	Morton Jones in his lab (JA715) in summer 1993
Morton Jones demonstrating in the second year laboratory
	Jimmy Richmond, technician, adjusting a millimetre wave spectrometer in Alan Phelps laboratory
Bob Beattie, technician, working in Geoff Duxbury’s laboratory