History in The Making: The Construction and Preservation of St Andrews’ Legacy

If the ruins around you aren’t reminder enough, the University’s advertising will consistently tell you that you go to Scotland’s first university. St Andrews evidently harbours great pride in its historical legacy. It’s also physically impossible to escape the past when your walk to class takes you past a ruined cathedral and over sites where heretics were burnt at the stake.

Yet, despite the emphasis on the University’s founding way back in 1413, this historical legacy is not an object far behind us. Sean Rippington — a member of the University Collections’ Archives — described the formation and preservation of historical legacies as involving “people, oral history, traditions, dress, buildings, museums objects, photos, online content, teaching and research material, and much more.” 

A glimpse at the dynamic archives and museums of the University reveals a history not only rife with legacy, but also one that’s being actively written to this day. “We don’t call them permanent displays,” explained Matthew Sheard, Head of Experiences and Engagement for the University’s Museums, “because that gives the impression that we can’t change them.” 

This idea was echoed by Rippington, who described “a tension between changing and preserving our collections” as “an interesting challenge” characterising his work. This tension is apparent at the Wardlaw Museum, where thematic displays take you through key moments in the University’s history — moments that shape university life today. 

An important focal point for the University’s history is the papal bull. “I think it underlines how central these collections are to the identity of the University and our place in history,” explained Rippington. The Papal Bull, confirming charter of Bishop Henry Wardlaw, is the document that made St Andrews the first university in Scotland and the third university in the English-speaking world, thus affirming its status and authorising it to award degrees.

Alongside official documents like the Bull, the Wardlaw Museum also presents the evolution of University traditions such as the red gown. A piece of clothing that functioned to identify students and prevent local landlords from serving them alcohol, the red gown was tied to a 1621 Act of Parliament that mandated academic dress. Today, the red gown is a £150 investment that students pull out of their wardrobes maybe twice a year. Yet, despite the ritual groans about the outrageous costs of taking part in tradition, you still see a sea of red at the annual Pier Walk and Gaudie. While the red gown is immortalised in a glass case at the Wardlaw, they play a role in preserving history just as significant as the museum itself when thousands of students don it to walk down the pier. 

Next to the red gown display in the museum is the University Rector’s gown. Showcasing the gown, and a statue of Peter Pan gifted to the University by JM Barrie during his tenure as Rector, the exhibit highlights the evolving nature of the rector’s role. Beginning as a position to rule day-to-day academic life, the signage in the museum defines the modern day Rector’s function as “chairing the University Court.” This definition may prove particularly volatile today, as the position of the Rector falls under contestation. With the removal of Stella Maris from the University Court in August, the University finds itself in a phase of negotiation around the Rector’s roles, power, and responsibility.

Another part of the museum that captures change is the representation of the LLA degree. In 1887, the University introduced a distance learning scheme in response to a law that prevented women from studying at the University in person. Sheard highlighted the significance of the University’s role in leading the movement for women’s tertiary education: “That’s how the Wardlaw Museum thinks about the University's legacy and its history — through impact.” 

The case representing this movement holds a diploma and the sash and badge donned by women who pursued the LLA. Next to the sash is also a mortar board hat, associated with the legend that male students threw their hats into the sea to protest the admittance of women into the University. As the site of a different set of protests today, the weekly marches for Gaza at the University are a component of its long history of activism. “You can’t begin to understand the history and legacy of the University without seeing the records of what has happened here,” explained Rippington. It remains to be seen how acts of resistance today will be recorded and represented by the University in the future.

Sheard identified crisis as central to triggering change and defining structural realities. He also highlighted the need to interrogate these structural realities that govern the University’s past. In discussing the University’s international outlook and global impact, he explained the need to acknowledge “that there are things in our collection that probably came into the collection in ways that we wouldn’t accept today, acknowledging those legacies, and then looking to see how we can use those legacies to build a more equitable future.”

This process is important to broadening involvement in constructing the University’s history. Sheard explained the tendency to present collections from a particular perspective that ignores links to colonialism, the “traditional positive view of empire.” Through projects like ‘Re-collecting Empire’, the Wardlaw engages with people who come from cultures where objects in their collection played a role and who “understood where we had made mistakes in interpreting those objects.” This process spans the breadth of the University’s collections.

Sheard spoke about objects displayed in the Bell Pettigrew Museum that “have always been treated as scientific objects” and learning  “that some of those objects actually have quite significant cultural significance.”

“We have an item that came into our collection in the 1800s. It’s described in the document where it’s first listed as ‘handbell, China’, that’s it. That’s the entirety of the information we had. I mean, China’s a big place,” said Sheard. He described confronting these gaps in knowledge through a process called provenance research, where the museum engages with the University community to better understand the objects in their collection.

“It was actually a Chinese student who could tell us what this handbell was, its ceremonial use, how it would have been used, [and] which parts of China it came from,” said Sheard. He described efforts to “show the kind of respect to the object that the community that it comes from would show.” Displaying the University’s history is thus an active process of uncovering new information. 

Even objects that have been part of the collection for hundreds of years hold scope for reinterpretation. Sheard mentioned a Buddhist manifesto that had been on display upside down before an interaction with the Buddhist chaplain, and the item’s presentation was amended.  

The University’s collections are thus central to preserving its history, through an active, communal process of interpretation. This interpretation lies at a nexus of past, present, and future, an interaction perhaps best captured by Sheard’s favourite object in the museum: a stained glass window. With ties to the Free Church of Scotland, funds from slave-owners, and “connections to empire you wouldn’t expect”, Sheard reflected on the window as “one of those objects that really makes me think about how we function today by looking at the mistakes people made in the past — well intentioned-mistakes, but mistakes nonetheless.”

“That’s part of what the Wardlaw Museum actually does,” he added. “We look at the past, but we’re actually trying to think about the future and think about how we build a better future, and we use the past as a jumping off point.”

Illustration: Calum Mayor