Photographs of Glasgow College by Annan,Thomas - 1866

ANNAN,Thomas. Photographs of Glasgow College.

Glasgow, T.Annan [1866]

Oblong folio album, 15.5 x 11.0 ins, original green cloth, a little worn, skilfully rebacked, triple gilt fillets, with the College coat-of-arms in gilt on upper board and lettered in gilt Photographs of Glasgow College, 20 albumen silver prints mounted on cards rectos, [17.1-13.0cm – 19.0-14.0cm] ten with arched tops, card edges gilt, some occasional foxing to endpapers and cards but not affecting images, images clean and crisp.

RARE ALBUM BY THE PIONEER PHOTOGRAPHER THOMAS ANNAN THE EARLIEST IMAGES OF GLASGOW COLLEGE BEFORE ITS ENTIRE DEMOLITION.

Glasgow College as Adam Smith knew it.

"by far the happiest and most honourable period of my life".

Probably commissioned by the College, these predate the later publication Memorials of the Old College of Glasgow 1871 which contained 41 photogravure images. Today, in the 21st century, the decision to demolish Glasgow College, would be considered as an act of vandalism.

Thomas Annan [1829-1887] was the pre-eminent photographer of Glasgow at this time.

This album of original albumen images is significant not only in the history of photography but also because every trace of the distinguished College [or University] of Glasgow founded in 1451, which stood on the east side of the High Street for 400 years has disappeared and the site it occupied has been altered beyond recognition. The site was sold to a railway company and became a railway goods yard. It is now derelict. The College left in 1870 and moved to the west end of Glasgow at Gilmore Hill.

The images illustrate where some of the greatest figures of the Scottish Enlightenment worked as lecturers and professors, and in particular Adam Smith, John Anderson, Joseph Black, James Clow, Thomas Craigie, William Cullen, Robert Foulis, Francis Hutcheson, William Leechman, John Millar, James Moor, James Robertson, and John Simson.

References: David Murray, Memories of the Old College of Glasgow 1927. W R Scott, Adam Smith as Student and Professor. 1937. Getty Museum: Thomas Annan: Photographer of Glasgow. Exhib. May-August 2017 Getty Center.