ANDERSON, John, professor of natural philosophy in the University of Glasgow, was born in the parish of Roseneath in Dumbartonshire in 1728. He finished his education in that University, where he first became professor of oriental languages in 1756, but in 1760 was appointed to the chair of natural philosophy, a subject more suited to his tastes and acquirements. In this department he laboured assiduously to apply scientific knowledge to the improvement of the mechanical arts. For this purpose he studied their processes in the various workshops of the city, and thus acquired an intimate acquaintance with those operations, which fitted him in an eminent degree for the great object which seems to have been his chief aim, the scientific instruction of the operative mechanic. He is, in fact, to be considered the father of those Mechanics' Institutions which have since been so widely disseminated in this and other countries. He soon began to open classes for their instruction in the principles of their arts, in which his familiar extempore discourses were illustrated by appropriate experiments. The working mechanic received every encouragement from this eminent man to attend his courses, at which they were received in their working dresses.
His anxiety for the improvement of the humble mechanic was not confined to his personal exertions. Shortly before
Anderson, his death in 1796, he bequeathed the whole of his property to 81 trustees, for the purpose of founding an institution for educational purposes in Glasgow. He had seemingly intended it as a sort of rival to the university in which he was himself a professor; for his will mentions the founding of four halls or colleges with nine professors in each, for the faculties of arts, medicine, law, and theology! But the trustees found the funds entrusted to them utterly inadequate to so gigantic a scheme; and they contented themselves with founding what is now called the Andersonian Institution, or sometimes less correctly University.
It was opened in 1797, by the appointment of Dr Thomas Garnett as professor of natural philosophy, who commenced with a popular course of lectures, which was attended by a considerable audience of both sexes. In 1798 a professor of mathematics and geography was appointed; and the institution has since had the aid of several able teachers. In 1799 Dr Garnett was succeeded by Dr Birkbeck, who had the merit of introducing in the institution a system of scientific instruction annually to 500 operative mechanics, free of all expense to the pupils. On the removal of this excellent man to the London Royal Institution, he was succeeded by Dr Andrew Ure in 1804; and Dr Ure by Dr William Gregory. This institution still flourishes; and has been of vast benefit to the humbler classes of the citizens of Glasgow. (T. S. T.)