Students in receipt of the Czech Refugee Trust Fund

Throughout the project on the University’s Slovakian & Czech connections,  it was noted that numerous students were registered with the Czechoslovak Refugee Trust, or with its predecessor, the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia.

The Czech Refugee Trust Fund was initially set up by the British Government in 1939 to provide a financial support for German and Jewish refugees from Sudetenland, a former part of Czechoslovakia, after it was ceded to Germany by the Munich Agreement in 1938. The funds for the trust came from a British and French loan aimed at the reconstruction of Czechoslovakia and a British gift amounting to 4 million pounds. In 1939, when Germany took over Czechoslovakia, the remaining funds were directed to the support of Czechoslovakian refugees in Britain and its dominions. This support continued after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948.

The Trust also supported the education and training of refugees in the UK, and students of the University of Glasgow were no exception. Among these students that the Trust supported were Herbert Franz Zalud, who left Czechoslovakia in 1938 due to the rise of Nazism, and Lubor Velecky, who came to UK in 1948 to escape from Communism.

Herbert Franz Zalud pursued a career in engineering, and eventually returned to the Czech Republic. After graduating from the University of Glasgow in 1941 he held various positions, such as chairman of the Commission of Scientific Workers, First Deputy Director for Research at the Motor Vehicle Research Institute in Czechoslovakia and worked for the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.

Lubor Velecky matriculation 1949-50

Lubor Velecky graduated MA from the University of Glasgow in 1952 and entered the Dominican Order which took him to Oxford, South Africa and Rome, where he taught at the Vatican College. However, he later decided to leave the Order in order to marry, and moved to Southampton, where he became a lecturer in the Philosophy Department of the University of Southampton.

What they have in common is their opposition to extreme political regimes in Czechoslovakia, whether it was Nazism or Communism, and the prosecution of their families by these regimes. While Lubor Velecky’s father participated in the revolt against the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia and, after being arrested, was sent to concentration camp Dachau where he later died; Herbert Zalud’s family was prosecuted on account of their Jewish origins, his mother and sister dying in Auschwitz. Both experienced persecution in their home countries, and came to Glasgow, which welcomed so many others like them, who too were in support of the Czech Refugee Trust Fund.

By Jakub Rybak, MA Economics, Project Slovakia & Czech Republic

Did you know? First Cameroonian student

The University welcomed its first Cameroonian student in 1946, Alexander Baba Gwan-Nulla.

Dr Gwan-Nulla obtained his MBChB in 1952, and Diplomas in Tropical Medicine & Hygiene and Public Health from the Universities of Liverpool and London respectively before returning to Cameroon as a Chief Medical Officer in the Medical Division of the Cameroon Development Corporation, in Bota, Victoria.

 

Take ‘the thirty-nine steps’ to the Mitchell Library for John Buchan lecture

As part of the lecture series programme to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the Chair of Scottish History and Literature at the University of Glasgow, the Centre for Scottish and Gaelic Studies this week presents a public lecture on “The Roots that Clutch; John Buchan, Glasgow and Scottish Fiction” by Professor Douglas Gifford, Emeritus Professor of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow and the first holder of the Chair of Scottish Literature at Glasgow (1995).

John Buchan, the famous Scottish novelist, barrister, Unionist MP, and 15th Governor General of Canada (1935-40), was a student of Classics at the University of Glasgow from 1892-1895.

In his lecture, Professor Gifford will chart Buchan’s journey as a writer, which by all accounts began with his time as an undergraduate student at the University, where he published poetry and essays in the Glasgow University Magazine. Buchan was said to have been deeply influenced by the teaching of Gilbert Murray, Professor of Greek, and Henry Jones, Professor of Moral Philosophy.  Buchan did not graduate, but in 1895 he left the University with a scholarship to study at Brasenose College, Oxford. And in 1919, he was awarded an honorary LLD by the University of Glasgow.

For more on Buchan’s career as a novelist, here are the details for Professor Gifford’s lecture:

Mitchell Library on Thursday 25 April 2013, starting at 6pm in the Jeffrey Room.

Whilst the event is free, pre-registration is required. To register online and find about more lectures in the series, please visit: http://glasgowinscottishhistoryandliterature.eventbrite.com

The missionary position of the International Story

As we have learned from a previous blog post, the nineteenth-century saw an uptake in British missionary societies, and consequently the International Story is one bound up with stories of missionaries and their impact abroad. One medical missionary whose story is lesser known is that of Dr Robert Reid Kalley.

Robert Reid Kalley

A Glasgow-born physician, Kalley later turned to medical missionary work, initially, but unintentionally, in Madeira and later in Brazil. Persecuted, but persistent  Kalley maintained his links with his Madeiran converts, who as refugees fled religious prosecution in Madeira at around the same time as Kalley, and were transported to the West Indies (Guyana) before being helped to enter the USA, namely Illinois.

Portuguese-speaking Kalley then went to Brazil where he actively engaged in political debates from the abolition of slavery to religious freedom.  He became the founder of the first evangelical church in Brazil in 1863, the Igreja Evangélica Fluminense, and the first indigenous evangelical church in the north-east of Brazil in 1873, the Igreja Evangélica Pernambucana.

If you are interested in sharing your knowledge about our international missionary links, or are interested in researching these links, please get in touch. Applications for Club21 placements on the International Story are still open: http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_274184_en.pdf

All University of Glasgow students are welcome to apply – with the only stipulation that you have an enthusiasm for history!

Generations of international naval engineers

The recent talk of Glasgow’s shipbuilding history prompted by the latest episode of BBC2′s Coast led me to an intriguing document held in the archives:

Naval Architecture Class, numbers & nationality 1890-1900 (GUA31619)

“Naval Architecture Class – Note of number & nationality of students from 1890 to 1900″.

Considering that university education in Naval Architecture was really only established with the appointment of the first University Professor of Naval Architecure at the University of Glasgow, Francis Elgar in 1883, it immediately had an impact in attracting students world-wide. And this trend was duely noted at the time, as the anonymous document displays.  The USA leads the way in international students of this subject, followed by Japan and Argentina.

Philip Jenkins succeeded Elgar as Professor of Naval architecture in 1886 (-1891), followed by the longest serving Professor of Naval Architecture, John Harvard Biles (1891-1921). Not only did they attract increasing numbers of international students, but their students also went on to work internationally. This fact was recently highlighted again by our Development and Alumni Office, who were in correspondence with alumnus, John Scott Younger.  John is the third generation of University of Glasgow graduate engineers, and has pieced together the story of his grandfather, Archibald Scott Younger (BSc 1889) and his father, John McNeil Younger (BSc 1924), in whose footsteps he followed when he graduated from Glasgow in 1962.

Percy Pilcher

John’s grandfather, Archibald Scott Younger (BSc 1889) worked as an assistant to Professor Biles from 1891-92. His appointment does not appear in the University Court minutes, suggesting that Younger was paid not by the University, but by Biles himself. This appeared to be the case for other assistants to Biles around that time: Herbert C. Sadler (1896-1900) and Percy S. Pilcher (1892-94).

After gradution in 1889, Archibald Scott Younger’s story after graduation is linked with Glasgow’s relations with Japan. He  joined the Glasgow-based firm A R Brown McFarlane & Co Ltd, who were initially involved in building ships for the Japanese. In 1911, Younger was engaged on a ship-building mission to Japan, bringing back to the Clyde a very large contract for the building of the first Japanese motor boats, and was subsequently appointed Consul for Japan, a position he held for some 20 years. According to John, the Younger family house in Dumbreck, Glasgow, was quite often ‘full’ of Japanese students in the city for study. For his services to Japan, Archibald was twice decorated by Emperor Hirohito with honours, first in 1919 with the High Order of the Rising Sun.

As for John, his story began in India, where he was born to John McNeil Younger (BSc 1924), a mechanical engineer  responsible for sugar mills in Bihar, and has ventured further afield to South East Asisa where he is currently an Honorary Research Fellow in Indonesia.

Naval Architecture class c.1898 (UP5/4/6)

No longer does the Naval Architecture class quite look like the above photo – the Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering merged with the Department of Ship and Marine Technology at the University of Strathclyde in 2001 to form the Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, jointly owned by the Universities, and which continues to attract international students.

German Soap Stars

In the late 1880s, three brothers came to study at the University: George Sharp, Alexander Sharp and John Sharp Douglas. They were all born in Hamburg, Germany, and were the sons of Alexander Sharp Douglas, whose occupation they cited as “retired from business, soap manufacturer.”

Douglas teddy bear

Like a lot of our student records that were kept by the University, the Sharp Douglas brothers’ records suggest an interesting background, but it was not until a trip to Germany that I twigged just as to how interesting. In fact, it was a teddy bear dressed in tartan with the Douglas branding on the foot that piqued my interest  – rather than any historical research I had undertaken. Those three brothers, as it turned out, were in fact the grandsons of the founder of what has become a successful global company today, Douglas.

After contacting Douglas Holding AG, I received their extensive business history, which all started in 1821 with a soap boiler from Govan (Glasgow),  John Sharp Douglas (c.1792 – 1847), who set sail for Hamburg and opened his soap factory with a small shop on the side. He would pioneer soap production with scents and oils, while cultivating a strong brand that would stand the test of time.

Douglas’ second soap factory at St Pauli

Professor Thomas Thomson

A soap boiler would not have necessarily had to have any University training, but instead would have served an apprenticeship. Nevertheless, I looked through the University records, and found one John Sharp in the Medical Matriculations. John Sharp – the Douglas, his mother’s maiden name, was an addition he made in Germany – enrolled for a Chemistry class in 1817 under Robert Cleghorn,  lecturer of Chemistry. This was the same year in which the Chair of Chemistry was founded by King George III, and Thomas Thomson, “the first teacher of practical chemistry”, was appointed.

John Sharp can certainly be considered an advocate of practical chemistry, knowledge which he employed 3 years later upon his arrival in Hamburg. His company would serve the ever increasing demand for “toilet soaps”, and make him his fortune in the booming Hanseatic city. His “chemical stroke of genius” that made him famous came in 1830, when he revolutionised soap making with his invention of  the coconut oil soda soap.

J.S. Douglas Söhne

The business was a continued success, but Douglas’ untimely death in 1847, meant that his children, from his marriage with the daughter of a Hamburg innkeeper, had to take over.  Theodor Hopff took over management temporarily until two of the sons, Thomas and Alexander, were of age to run the business. Operating as J S Douglas & Söhne since 1850, the sons took over in 1863; Thomas was responsible for the manufacturing and Alexander for the business side, and together they modernised and internationalised the family company.

Advertisement c.1868

It was only in 1878, with Thomas’ unexplained resignation, that Alexander had to sell the company in order to secure its continued success in an increasingly competitive market, but the new owners, both Hamburg merchants, retained the company name and continued to benefit from the past branding, marketing and reputation of the firm. The Carsten sisters entered into contract with the soap factory in 1910, to use the name Douglas to “establish and operate a business in soaps, perfumery products, and toiletries in Hamburg.” And on 1 June 1910, the sisters opened the “Parfümerie Douglas” on Hamburg’s most expensive shopping boulevard – Neuer Wall – and the 100 year Jubilee was celebrated in 2010 by the company whose proud history started with the soap boiler from Govan.

The Sharp Douglas brothers returned to the place where their grandfather had left in 1820, but what was their story? To be continued….or as they say in German, Fortsetzung folgt…

[All Douglas-related images have been provided courtesy of Douglas - except for the teddy bear photograph, which is my own.]

University of Glasgow alumni who helped shape America

A number of American students who studied or were awarded degrees at the University of Glasgow were very much involved in the shaping of the young nation after the Revolutionary War. A few students in particular made a lasting impact politically and socially in the newly independent America.

Robert & Laurence Brooke, Register of Attested Students 1775 (GUA26680)

Robert Brooke and his brother Laurence, attended the University of Glasgow after their father sent them to Scotland for their education. Robert was to study Law, and enrolled at the University in 1773, just at the time that the revolutionary movements back in America were at bioling point, with incidents such as the Boston Tea Party. Robert was captured by English troops before eventually making his way back to America, where he would become the tenth Governor of the state of Virginia, one of the original thirteen colonies. His policies would have a lasting influence on the state in its future endeavors, as would his name, the county of Brooke being formed in his memory in 1797.

An influential honorary graduate who made an impact on the shaping of America was Thomas Clap of Massachusetts. He was president of Yale College from 1740, and received his honorary degree from the University of Glasgow in 1748. Many of the changes and guidelines Clap set in place while he was president continue to have a lasting affect on Yale University today. He oversaw an expansion of the grounds which permitted more students to attend and was heavily involved in the expansion of the curriculum. His background in ministry helped him regiment a strict educational routine in the school which enabled it to become the institution it is today.

These men are just two of the numerous examples of students with ties to both America and the University of Glasgow who influenced the foundation of America after the Revolutionary War. Click on their links to read further biographical detail on the International Story website.

Ilana Brener, History and Politics