In 1982, the Department of Bioscience and Biotechnology was formed from the four smaller departments of Food Science and Nutrition, Applied Microbiology, Biology, and Biochemistry, together with the Biotechnology Unit.
Gerri (Geraldine) Kirkwood studied at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh and the Scottish Institute of Human Relations. She began her career as a teacher of French and later became a Reporter to Children’s Panels and community activist in Glasgow. In 1979, she joined Lothian Regional Council to work on the Adult Learning Project (ALP) in the Gorgie Dalry area of Edinburgh, as a community adult educator, along with Stan Reeves and Fiona McCall. The aim of the project was to devise new methods of working educationally with adults in the community and was based on the ideas of the Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire. She spoke about Freire at national events in Ireland and England. In 1989, she was appointed Head of Community Affairs at Wester Hailes Education Centre, a community school in Edinburgh. Following retirement, she taught English to international students.
Colin Kirkwood grew up in Caithness, Galloway and Ayrshire, Scotland. He studied at Ardrossan Academy, the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh and the Scottish institute of Human Relations. He has been described as a Scottish generalist, with interests in literature and the arts, moral philosophy, politics, education, religion and psychoanalysis.
From the 1970s onwards, he played leading roles in adult and workers education and community action, promoting the ideas of the radical Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire. Between 1976 and 1986 he was employed by the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) South-East Scotland District, initially as Tutor Organiser and then as District Secretary. He was heavily involved in the community newspaper and writers workshop movements. Community newspapers with which he was associated include ‘Staveley Now’, ‘Castlemilk Today’ and ‘Scottish Tenant’.
He subsequently qualified as a counsellor and psychoanalytic psychotherapist and became head of the Centre for Counselling Studies at the Moray House School of Education at the University of Edinburgh. Following retirement from the University, he worked for five years as Senior Psychotherapist at the Huntercombe Edinburgh Hospital, where he worked with women and girls with severe eating disorders.
He wrote several books including ‘Adult Education and the Unemployed’ (1984), ‘Vulgar Eloquence: Essays on Education, Community and Politics’ (1990), ‘Living Adult Education: Freire in Scotland' (second edition, 2011) (with Gerri Kirkwood), 'The Persons in Relation Perspective: in Counselling, Psychotherapy and Community Adult Learning' (2012) and 'Community Work and Adult Education in Staveley, North-East Derbyshire, 1969-1972' (2020). He also published poetry and literary criticism.
The Rotterdam Convention is a global treaty to manage chemicals in international trade.
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) developed and promoted voluntary information exchange programmes in the mid-1980s. A series of meetings and activity led to the formalisation of the Rotterdam Convention. The text of the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade was adopted and opened for signature at the Conference of Plenipotentiaries held in Rotterdam on 10 September 1998.
The Convention entered into force on 24 February 2004 and became legally binding for its parties.
The Department of History at Strathclyde came into being in the 1960s and rapidly developed throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1959, the Department of Industrial Administration in the Royal College of Science and Technology were beginning to build up an inter-disciplinary team. By 1960 seven academics brought their individual specialisations to the staff: General Studies, Philosophy, History, Geography and Urban Planning and Literature. These staff members were: I.F. Clarke, Christopher Macrae, John Butt, Donald Gordon, Peter Green, Christopher Wiseman, and Michael Gregory.
These members of staff, alongside others in the Royal College of Science and Technology, joined the campaign for university status and with it the inclusion of Arts and Social Studies. In 1961 Sir Keith Murray and the University Grants Committee (UGC) accepted the College for university status. The following year, March 1962, the Royal College saw further development, with five new departments created: Economics, Politics, Psychology, Administration and Economic History.
In 1962 Samuel George Edgar Lythe became the founding Professor of Economic History at the Royal College of Science and Technology. In 1963 five members of staff made up the Economic History department: Lythe, John Ward, Richard Wilson, Michael Sanderson, and John Moore. In 1964 the Royal College merged with the Scottish College of Commerce and became the University of Strathclyde. Two members of staff joined the Economic History Department from the College of Commerce: Tom McAloon and Barbara Thatcher. Gordon Jackson also joined in 1964, as did John Butt who introduced American Economic History to the Department.
In 1974 the Senate and Court approved Lythe’s request for a new degree course: Modern History was founded in the university. The History department was then able to teach two-degree courses. John T. Ward was appointed as the first Professor of Modern History at Strathclyde. Lythe was also granted approval in 1974 to rename the department. It was no longer Economic History, but the Department of History.
John Butt B.A, PhD., was a lecturer in the Department of Industrial Administration, Royal College of Science and Technology, from 1957 until 1964 when he became a lecturer in American Economic History at the newly formed University of Strathclyde. He was a senior lecturer from 1975-1976 when he was appointed Professor of Economic History. He was Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Studies from 1978-1984. He was then appointed Vice Principle at the University of Strathclyde in 1988 and retired in the Autumn of 1994.
Butt graduated with a BA from the University of London, subsequently gaining his PhD from University of Glasgow. He joined the Royal College of Science and Technology in 1959 and was appointed to teach General Studies with an inter-disciplinary team in the Department of Industrial Administration. The goal was to teach a range of courses including History, Philosophy, Geography and Urban Planning, and Literature. In 1964, the College was given university status, and five new departments were created - Economics, Politics, Psychology, Administration and Economic and Industrial History. The Scottish College of Commerce merged with the university in 1964 and Butt introduced American Economic History. He was a senior lecturer from 1975 to 1976. Butt succeeded S. G. E Lythe as Professor of Economic History and in this role, he took on a new project – uncovering and writing the History of the University of Strathclyde. This involved case studies of individuals who made an important impact on the legacy of the university: John Anderson, David Livingstone, and Thomas Graham.
He served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Studies from 1978-84 and Deputy Principal in 1986. On the 1st of August 1988 Butt was appointed to Vice Principle.
Butt was also chairman of the governors of Craigie College, Ayr. He served in the military education committee and the general teaching council. He was elected fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and was a member of the Royal Commonwealth Society.
John Butt served the History Department at Strathclyde for 37 years, and under his management the History Department was granted an A excellence rating by the University Grants Committee. In Autumn, 1994 Butt retired from the University of Strathclyde. He died on the 3rd of July 2002 at the age of 73.
A selection of publications by John Butt:
Lythe was Professor of Economic History, 1962-1976, Vice-Principal, 1972-1976, and Honorary Archivist,1977-1980, at the University of Strathclyde.
Lythe graduated with an MA from Selwyn College, Cambridge after which he was employed as a lecturer at the University of Hull. In 1935, he moved to Dundee School of Economics. During the Second World War he served in the RAF. After the war, he continued working at the Dundee School of Economics where he pioneered the teaching of economic history, publishing in 1950 the groundbreaking book 'British Economic History since 1760'.
In 1962, he was appointed to the first Chair of Economic History at the Royal College of Science and Technology in Glasgow. In 1963, there were only four other lecturers teaching alongside Lythe in the department. After the College gained University status in 1964 becoming the University of Strathclyde, Lythe strove to develop the department, for example introducing political history. In 1974, he obtained approval from the Senate and Court for a new degree course in Modern History. A new Chair was created and the department renamed the Department of History.
Lythe was appointed the first Dean of the School of Arts and Social Studies and served in this role for nine years. In 1972, he was appointed Vice Principal of the University. He retired in 1976. In 1977, he was appointed Honorary Archivist in which role he collected and established the University's historical collections. He served as Honorary Archivist until 1980.
In addition to his appointments at Strathclyde, Lythe was a founding member, in the 1960s, of the Abertay Historical Society. He also produced booklets on the history of Walkington, the village in which he grew up. He was a member of the Scottish Local History Council, Hamilton College of Education, the Scottish Field of Archaeology, and the Scottish Universities Summer School Committee.
He died in 1997.
Selected publications:
Barbara M. Thatcher was a Business lecturer at the Scottish College of Commerce and then a Senior lecturer in Economic History at the University of Strathclyde.
Thatcher graduated with a BCom degree in History from London. In 1949, she was appointed to lecture in the Business Administration department at the Scottish College of Commerce. Thatcher became the College’s Adviser to Women Students in 1963. The Scottish College of Commerce merged with the University of Strathclyde in 1964 and so Thatcher joined the University and became the first woman lecturer in the Economic History Department. She became a Senior Lecturer before retiring in late September 1981. In 1982, she became an Honorary Lecturer in the Department of History at Strathclyde. She maintained this position until 1987.
During her retirement Thatcher made ecclesiastical history as she became one of the first Episcopal women priests to be ordained in Scotland in 1995.
Barbara Thatcher died in 2012.
William Hamish Fraser was appointed Lecturer in History at the University of Strathclyde in 1967 and became Senior lecturer in 1977. He was Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences 1987 - 1993. He was Professor in History from 1996 until his retirement in 2003, when we became Professor Emeritus.
Fraser obtained an undergraduate degree at the University of Aberdeen and a doctorate in history at the University of Sussex. After graduating from the University of Aberdeen, he became a postgraduate student in the mid-1960s. He gained his PhD in history at the University of Sussex in 1968.
Fraser published throughout his academic career on Scottish labour and social history. A selection of publications by William Hamish Fraser:
Scottish writer and author of the novel 'The Dear Green Place'.
Julian Peto is an epidemiologist whose dose-response models for asbestos-related cancers contributed directly to reducing industrial exposure levels and subsequently to the European asbestos ban, and are still the accepted basis for environmental risk assessment.
Richard Doll is one of the most highly celebrated epidemiologists of the 20th century, He is best known for his work on smoking and lung cancer.
Cape Industries Ltd was registered in December 1893 as Cape Asbestos Company Ltd. It was incorporated in 1957. Its name changed to 'Cape Industries Limited' in 1974.
Originally a company that specialised in mining asbestos, Cape developed asbestos-free products in the 1970s and developed a scaffolding division.
Alistair Goldsmith was educated at Jordanhill College School, Glasgow, and Marr College, Troon, Ayrshire. In the autumn of 1970, he commenced undergraduate studies at the Scottish Hotel School, University of Strathclyde, and graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Hotel and Catering Management in 1973. He then completed a postgraduate course at Strathclyde, qualifying for the Postgraduate Diploma in Personnel Management in April 1975. After leaving university, he joined the Trust Houses Forte Hotels company as Personnel Manager for St George's Hotel, Liverpool: a post secured via Professor John Beavis at the Scottish Hotel School, who 'matched' him with the role when approached by the company. He subsequently returned to Scotland to manage the hotel at Weem, near Aberfeldy, before moving to the Queen's Hotel, Prestwick. Whilst in Prestwick, he also worked as a volunteer on the Waverley, the world's last seagoing paddle steamer. This led to a full time post as Catering Officer for the Waverley Steam Navigation Company Ltd, Glasgow, from 1978-1980. Having re-established contact with the Scottish Hotel School, he was then invited to return there in September 1980 to assist with teaching for a term. This temporary arrangement became permanent, and he remained on the staff of the Scottish Hotel School until his retirement in 2009. Whilst lecturing there, he also gained two postgraduate research degrees from the University of Strathclyde: an MLitt in History, awarded in 1985, and a PhD in History, awarded in 2002 for his thesis on 'The development of the City of Glasgow Police c.1800-c.1939.' In retirement, Dr Goldsmith is an active member of the University of Strathclyde Graduates' Association, serving as its President in 2024.