University, City and State: The University of Glasgow Since 1870

With the proceeds of selling its city centre site to a railway, Glasgow university exchanged its original and increasingly overcrowded site for a magnificent neo-gothic building at the greenfield location of Gilmourehill in 1870. The history of the university on its new site then develops in conjunction with that of Glasgow as the second city of the Empire before suffering the privation of two world wars and the long dislocation of its local economy in the 1930s. After Word War II, the University is ever more powerfully shaped by the State as it expands threefold in size. The current flowering of links with industry and the economy through research funding, innovation and technology transfer emphasize the recognition of the imporatance of the University’s economic, cultural and social role in the life of the City as its story enters the 21st century.