University of Edinburgh

On April 14, 1582, James VI signed a Charter of Confirmation and Novodamus. It was not strictly a foundation charter: it confirmed and extended a charter granted to the town by Mary, Queen of Scots, on March 13, 1567, which had given the town the lands, buildings and revenues of monastic orders abolished in the Reformation of 1560. James VI’s charter authorised the Town Council to use that income for a college of higher education and to appoint and dismiss its staff after consulting the ministers of the city’s Kirk.⁠[1]

The Town Council converted Hamilton House on the Kirk o’ Field site into classrooms, a college hall and 17 student bedrooms, and on September 14, 1583, appointed Robert Rollock (1555–1599) as the first regent. Because teaching was in Latin, an entrance examination was held on October 11, 1583; the college opened on October 14, 1583, with 80 to 90 students, 50 to 60 of them in Rollock’s class and the rest tutored by Duncan Nairn in a preparatory year.⁠[2]

The university describes itself as the sixth oldest university in the UK.⁠[3]

In February 1586 Robert Rollock was appointed Principal and gave up regular tutoring. At the end of the 1586–87 session he examined his 47 final-year students himself and awarded them MA degrees. In November 1587, with the consent of the Presbytery of Edinburgh, the Council appointed Rollock Professor of Theology to teach graduates preparing for the ministry.⁠[2]

In 1620 the roles of Principal and Professor of Divinity were separated. The university founded its Faculty of Law in 1707, its Faculty of Arts in 1708 and its Faculty of Medicine in 1726.⁠[3]

On June 16, 1708, on the initiative of Principal William Carstares (1649–1715), the Council abolished regenting, under which one teacher taught a class every subject, in favour of a professorial system, offering chairs to the existing regents.⁠[2]

In 1745 classes were suspended as Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Jacobite army marched on the city.⁠[3]

In 1789 the foundation stone was laid at the Old College site.⁠[3]

In 1809 William Fergusson matriculated as the university’s first recorded student of African descent. In 1859 James “Africanus” Beale Horton became its first African graduate, with an MD.⁠[3]

In 1847 James Young Simpson discovered the anaesthetic use of chloroform in childbirth.⁠[3]

In 1858 the Universities (Scotland) Act gave the university full control of its own affairs, transferring the Town Council’s power to appoint staff to the University Court. In 1859 W E Gladstone became the first Rector elected by the student body.⁠[3][1]

In 1869 the Edinburgh Seven became, as the university describes them, the first female students allowed to matriculate at any UK university. The university’s first female students graduated in 1893.⁠[3]

McEwan Hall opened in 1897.⁠[3]

During the First World War (1914–1918), nearly 8,000 students and graduates enlisted in the armed forces. In 1915 Clara Marguerite Christian enrolled as the university’s first black female student. In 1920 the foundation stone was laid at the King’s Buildings campus.⁠[3]

In 1924 Eric Liddell won the 400 metres at the Paris Olympics.⁠[3]

In 1958 Elizabeth Wiskemann became the university’s first female Professor. Edinburgh University Students’ Association was founded in 1973.⁠[3]

Peter Higgs predicted the Higgs boson in 1964 and for this was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013.⁠[3]

The university was one of the 17 original members of the Russell Group, which was established in 1994.⁠[4][5]

In 1996 Dolly the Sheep was cloned at the Roslin Institute.⁠[3]

Moray House Institute of Education informally approached the university about a merger in 1995, and the merger was ratified by the Secretary of State in June 1998. On August 1, 1998, Moray House became the University of Edinburgh’s Faculty of Education, coinciding with 150 years of teacher training in the Moray House building.⁠[6]

After the merger women made up more than half of the student body for the first time; their share had risen from 30% in 1962–63 to 48% by the mid-1990s.⁠[6]

In 2002 a new Medical School opened at Little France. The same year the university reorganised its nine faculties into three colleges, and the Faculty of Education became the Moray House School of Education within the College of Humanities and Social Science.⁠[3][6]

The Princess Royal has been Chancellor since March 2011, succeeding Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who held the office from 1953 to 2010.⁠[7]

The university and Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) had jointly taught an MA (Honours) in Fine Art since 1946, and in 2003 the university became ECA’s accrediting body. ECA’s Board of Governors and the University Court approved the merger plan in September 2010, the Scottish Government approved it in January 2011, and the Scottish Funding Council provided £13.8 million in new investment. On August 1, 2011, ECA merged with the university as an enlarged school within the College of Humanities and Social Science, keeping its name.⁠[8]

The Easter Bush Veterinary Campus also opened in 2011.⁠[8]

In 2017 plans to make Edinburgh the data capital of Europe were announced. In 2018 Professor Evelyn Telfer grew human eggs in the lab.⁠[3]

Peter Mathieson has been the 35th Principal and Vice-Chancellor since February 2018. He was previously the 15th President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong from April 2014 to January 2018, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of BristolUniversity of BristolThe University of Bristol is a research university in Bristol, England, United Kingdom. It began as University College, Bristol, which opened in 1876, became a university under a royal charter in 1909 and is a member of the Russell Group.Open the full entry from 2008, and from 1995 Foundation Professor of Renal Medicine there. He graduated MBBS with first-class honours from the University of London in 1983 and received a PhD from the University of CambridgeUniversity of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is a university in Cambridge, England, United Kingdom. It gives 1209 as its founding date, is made up of Schools, Faculties, Departments and autonomous Colleges, and is a member of the Russell Group.Open the full entry in 1992.⁠[9]

In 2019 work began to install the £79 million supercomputer ARCHER2.⁠[3]

On June 11, 2025, the university announced that the UK Government had confirmed up to £750 million in its Spending Review for the UK’s next national supercomputer, to be housed in a new wing of the university’s Advanced Computing Facility in Midlothian, which is operated by EPCC, and used for large-scale complex modelling in fields including medicine, climate change and national security; the university said it would vastly exceed the capacity of ARCHER2, the current national supercomputer, which it also hosts.⁠[10]

The university states that its links to colonialism date to the 18th and 19th centuries. It commissioned a Race Review in 2021, and the review was published in July 2025.⁠[3]

The Edinburgh Futures Institute opened to the public on June 3, 2024, in the Old Royal Infirmary, built in 1879 and Edinburgh’s main hospital until 2003. The restoration took seven years and received £56 million in capital funding from the UK Government and more than £2 million from the Scottish Government.⁠[11]

In 2025/26 (snapshot date July 31, 2026, rounded to the nearest 5), the university had 48,820 students: 29,660 undergraduates, 12,615 postgraduate taught and 6,550 postgraduate research students, of whom 36,150 were full-time and 12,675 part-time. By domicile on entry, 12,990 came from Scotland, 11,390 from the rest of the UK, 3,500 from the EU and 20,895 from overseas.⁠[12]

On October 5, 2026, the university announced that Peter Mathieson would not seek a third term and expected to step down in early 2028.⁠[13]

The university announced the search for the next Principal on October 8, 2026, and in an update on November 5, 2026, said that the executive search firm WittKieffer had consulted around 700 students, staff and alumni, and that a Selection Committee chaired by Dr Frank Armstrong, Senior Lay Member of the University Court, would oversee the recruitment and present its recommendation to the Court for approval.⁠[14]

Chancellors between 1859 and 1952 were Baron Brougham and Vaux (1859–1868), John Inglis (1868–1891), the Earl of Balfour (1891–1930), Sir James Matthew Barrie (1930–1937), Baron Tweedsmuir of Elsfield (1937–1940) and the Marquis of Linlithgow (1946–1952).⁠[7]

The university also lists its affiliations with Universitas 21, the League of European Research Universities (LERU), the Coimbra Group, Una Europa, UNICA and the European University Association, among others.⁠[15]

University of Edinburgh: Official website: https://www.ed.ac.uk/ (opens in a new window).⁠[16]