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Wanda Zamorska was born in Glasgow, Scotland on 9 June 1861. She was the second of six children of Albert Zamorski, a commission agent for elastics and silks, and his wife, Martha Grundy Zamorska (née Cooper). After her parents died, Wanda, who never married, shared a home in Glasgow with three of her siblings and appeared in the 1891 census of Scotland as a teacher of music.

In 1894, Wanda and her sisters, Elma and Alberta, enrolled for a summer evening course in botany at the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College (GWSTC - known from 1912 as the Royal Technical College (RTC), forerunner of the University of Strathclyde). Over the next four years, the trio returned for further evening studies in various scientific subjects, including an experimental physics class, for which Wanda gained second prize in session 1895-1896. Neither Elma nor Alberta pursued their studies beyond session 1896-1897, but Wanda enrolled for another evening class in botany in session 1897-1898, followed by a geology class in session 1898-1899. After a break of several years, she resumed her evening studies in session 1903-1904, taking bacteriology lecture course I and bacteriology laboratory course I. During this session, a new Lecturer in Botany and Bacteriology, Dr David Ellis, took up post, and soon recognized Wanda's abilities. She was appointed as a part-time assistant to Dr Ellis from 1 September 1904 at a salary of £13 per annum, thus becoming one of the few women involved in the teaching of scientific subjects at the GWSTC in this period. During session 1904-1905, Wanda also received a Kerr Bursary in Botany of £15, tenable for a maximum of three years. This award, combined with the remuneration from her part-time post, may have enabled her to reduce or give up her primary occupation as a teacher of music, as in session 1905-1906 she enrolled as a day student of the GWSTC for the first time.

Over the next decade, Wanda combined her part-time assistant’s role with attendance as a student at the GWSTC. She enrolled for classes in various scientific subjects, including day courses in organic chemistry and inorganic chemistry, and a special laboratory course in botany. She also qualified for first class certificates of merit (awarded for a final mark of over 80 percent) in most of her evening classes, including bacteriology lecture course II, bacteriology laboratory course II, pharmacy, materia medica, zoology lecture courses I and II, and zoology laboratory courses I and II. Her final enrolment as a student occurred in session 1914-1915, when she took the zoology special laboratory evening class.

In session 1906-1907, Wanda Zamorska was the senior of three part-time assistants attached to the Department of Botany and Bacteriology, alongside Miss Evelyne Gilmour and Mr George Russell. The assistants’ duties primarily involved preparing and conducting practical demonstrations for Dr Ellis’s classes. From 1907, the introduction of new vacation courses in botany for schoolteachers and courses in economic botany for grocers saw the assistants’ workload increase considerably, with Wanda’s salary rising to £25 by November of that year. In September 1911, Evelyne Gilmour resigned and her duties were absorbed by Wanda Zamorska, whose remuneration further increased to £45 per annum. By session 1916-1917, George Russell had also departed, leaving Wanda as the sole assistant in the Department of Botany and Bacteriology. This, together with the strains experienced by all staff in their efforts to keep classes going throughout the First World War, may have encouraged her to appeal to the RTC’s Committee on Mathematics, Natural Philosophy and Natural Sciences. In September 1919, responding to a letter received from Wanda Zamorska, the Committee recommended that her salary be raised to £90 for the session and that Dr Ellis should make some arrangements to relieve her from day duties. One of these arrangements may have concerned her title, as the RTC Calendar for session 1920-1921 lists Miss Zamorska as ‘Demonstrator’ rather than ‘Assistant’ in the Department of Botany and Bacteriology.

By 1920, Dr David Ellis, Lecturer in Botany and Bacteriology, was also Superintendent of the RTC’s School of Pharmacy and had charge of the School of Bakery. To better manage the increasing workload within his department, in May 1923 Ellis requested that his six part-time assistants be replaced by two full-time assistants from session 1923-1924. The senior of these posts went to Wanda Zamorska, at a salary of £325 per annum. Thereafter, the RTC Annual Reports list her as Assistant Lecturer to Dr Ellis in the Department of Botany and Bacteriology and also as Assistant Lecturer in Botany within the School of Pharmacy. Although she appealed to the Committee on Mathematics, Natural Philosophy and Natural Sciences for a further increase of salary in the summer of 1924, her request was not granted. Wanda Zamorska retired in the summer of 1926, aged 65, after 22 years of service to the GWSTC and the RTC. She died at the age of 90 on 26 November 1951.

William Steele Wood was the first person awarded a PhD by the University of Strathclyde. Wood gained his PhD in Electronic and Electrical Engineering on 09 July 1965. He was later an Emeritus Professor at the University of Strathclyde.

William Wilson was born on 1 May 1913. He studied at the University of Glasgow, graduating with a second-class Honours degree in French and German in 1937. He then enrolled for teacher training at the Glasgow Provincial Training College (forerunner of Jordanhill College of Education, now the University of Strathclyde), attending from 1 October 1937 to 16 December 1938. The College student register shows that he was then lodging care of Blunt at 116 Caledonian Road, Wishaw, Lanarkshire. Wilson successfully completed the concurrent Chapter III and Chapter V course, which led to two qualifications: the Teacher's General Certificate, entitling him to teach primary school subjects, and the Teacher's Special Certificate, entitling him to teach the subjects of French and German in secondary schools.

James Montgomery Williamson was born on 5 November 1899 in Falkirk to Andrew Williamson, an engineer, and Catherine Miller. He was a member of the Pharmaceutical Society (MPS) and operated as a chemist and druggist from premises at 660 Govan Road, Glasgow. He and his wife, Janet, lived at 64 Butterburn Park, Hamilton. He died at Stonehouse Hospital in Lanarkshire on 14 May 1966.

Ronald William Walker (1893-1984), qualified for the Royal Technical College’s Associateship in Civil Engineering in 1913, shortly before the outbreak of war. Walker entered the theatre of war in France on 2 December 1917 as a Sapper with the Royal Engineers, rising to the rank of Second Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery. He subsequently served in, and survived, the Second World War as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Engineers.

On his return from France, Walker forged a successful career in the field of civil engineering, his College training allowing him to make a practical contribution to the country’s post-war recovery. An Associate Member of the Institute of Civil Engineers and a Member of the Institution of Structural Engineers, he worked both in Scotland and England, holding a variety of posts (Assistant Civil Engineer with the firm of Formans and McCall, Glasgow; Resident Engineer with Surrey County Council, and Civilian Engineer with the War Office in London, amongst others). Walker also retained strong links with his alma mater. He was elected a Member of the Council of the Royal College of Science and Technology (RCST) - the successor body to the Royal Technical College - in session 1963-64. Following the RCST’s amalgamation with the Scottish College of Commerce to form the University of Strathclyde, Walker became a Member of the University Court until 1967. By virtue of the fact that he had been a serving Member of the Council of the RCST when the Royal Charter came into effect, Walker was also appointed a Life Member of the General Convocation of the University of Strathclyde.

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 was 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.

Alexander Robertus Todd was born in Glasgow and was educated first at Holmlea public school, Cathcart, and from 1918 at Allan Glen's School in Glasgow, a high school which emphasized the teaching of mathematics, physics, and chemistry.

He entered the University of Glasgow in 1924 and studied chemistry, graduating BSc with first class honours in 1928. Alexander went on to become a brilliant chemist and held academic positions throughout the UK. In 1938, Todd was appointed Sir Samuel Hall Professor of Chemistry at the University of Manchester, went on to become Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Cambridge 1944 – 1971, and was Master of Christ's College, Cambridge 1963 - 1978.

In 1957 Alexander Robertus Todd won the Nobel Prize and Chemistry "for his work on nucleotides and nucleotide co-enzymes."

He was knighted in 1954 and created a life peer in 1962. Among many other honours, he was President of the Royal Society 1975 - 1980.

Todd became the first Chancellor of the University of Strathclyde, from 1965 until 1991.

Alfred Brumwell Thomas was born in London, on 24 February 1868. He commenced practice about 1894, initially with his father, under the name of E. Thomas & Son, but later worked independently, adding the invented name Brumwell as a distinguishing feature. Thomas achieved notable success in competitions for large public buildings, beginning with Belfast city hall in 1896. Thomas's other main competition successes—Woolwich town hall (1899–1908) in south-east London and Stockport town hall (1903–6) in Cheshire, both of which were contemporary with Belfast—were designed in a similar idiom and faced in the same material, Portland stone. Following the completion of Belfast city hall, Thomas was knighted in 1906. He was a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and sometime president of the Architectural Association. He died on 22 January 1948.

Barbara Thatcher was a lecturer in business 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.

She died in 2012.

The Study Circle was a Christian Fellowship established by the pacifist, Christian reformer and political activist, Robert Shanks (1870-1921). Shanks was born in Bridgeton and brought up in the East End of Glasgow. He was President of the Glasgow Eastern Branch of the Young Scots Society, which met in the Liberal Association Rooms in Whitevale Street. When the Great War broke out in August 1914, the Society temporarily ceased its activities, but Shanks and several of his fellow members wished to continue. Utilising the same venue, Shanks took it upon himself to deliver a series of addresses on ‘The War and Foreign Policy’. This initiative developed into a regular weekly meeting held under the name of the Eastern Study Circle ('Eastern' was subsequently dropped from the title). The weekly meeting was rescheduled to Sunday morning so that more people might attend and, at Shanks’ behest, a religious service was also incorporated.
The Study Circle proved so successful that it moved to progressively larger venues: a hall in Hillfoot Street in September 1916, the Central Halls in Bath Street in April 1917, and in December 1917, the Masonic Hall at 100 West Regent Street, with a capacity of 400. The primary purpose of the meeting, which now attracted people from all over Glasgow and the surrounding area, was to discuss the principles and problems of national and international life and the pressing social and political issues of the day, in the light of Christianity. A charismatic speaker and inspiring personality, Shanks delivered addresses and conducted the Study Circle's services for six years until his death in 1921. He also invited a variety of distinguished local, national and international guest speakers to address the meetings, which were always informal, non-sectarian, tolerant and humanitarian in tone. The Study Circle established its own Sunday School, a Current Topics Club and a Country Rambles Club for young people, and held occasional special lectures and an annual Peace Demonstration. It also instituted sewing parties, prison visiting and regular Sunday collections of clothing and food for the relief of distress both at home and abroad. After Shanks' death, William Niven, a Glasgow businessman who was one of the original members of the Study Circle, took charge of its weekly meeting, which continued until at least 1942.

Rory Stride was a student at the University of Strathclyde. In 2016, he completed a BA thesis called ‘“Proud to be a Clyde shipbuilder. Clyde built”: The Changing Work Identity of Govan’s Shipbuilders, c.1960-Present.’ In 2018, he completed an MSC thesis called ‘Gender, Work and Deindustrialisation: Women’s Experiences of Work and Closure at James Templeton & Co., Glasgow, c.1960-1981’.