University of St Andrews

St Mary's College, home of the Faculty and School of Divinity within the University of St Andrews, in Fife, Scotland - in full, the New College of... the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The College was founded in 1538 by Archbishop James Beaton, uncle of Cardinal David Beaton on the site of the pedagogy or St Johns College . St Mary's College was intended to preserve the teachings of the Roman Catholic church against the "heretical" teachings of the reformers. It was dedicated to a revival of learning on the Continental trilingual model and from the outset laid emphasis on the knowledge of Latin, Greek and Hebrew. In 1579, nineteen years after the Reformation brought fundamental changes to the religious life of the Scottish nation, St Mary's College was reconstituted as the Faculty of Divinity of the University. St Mary's College retains much of its original sixteenth century buildings, specifically the north and West ranges. The Quad contains a thorn tree said to have been planted by Mary, Queen of Scots, during her many visits to St.Andrews. The Quad also contains the historic King James Library founded by King James VI & I in 1612.
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Russell Kirk was an American political theorist, moralist, historian, social critic, literary critic, and fiction author known for his influence on... 20th century American conservatism. His 1953 book, The Conservative Mind, gave shape to the amorphous post–World War II conservative movement. It traced the development of conservative thought in the Anglo-American tradition, giving special importance to the ideas of Edmund Burke. Kirk was also considered the chief proponent of traditionalist conservatism. Russell Kirk was born in Plymouth, Michigan. He was the son of Russell Andrew Kirk, a railroad engineer, and Marjorie Pierce Kirk. Kirk obtained his B.A. at Michigan State University and a M.A. at Duke University. During World War II, he served in the American armed forces and corresponded with libertarian writer, Isabel Paterson, who helped to shape his early political thought. After the war, he attended the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. In 1953, he became the only American to be awarded the degree of Doctor of Letters by that university.
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Sir Michael Victor Berry, FRS , is a mathematical physicist at the University of Bristol, England. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of... London in 1982 and knighted in 1996. From 2006 he has been Editor of the journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society. He is famous among other things for the Berry phase, a phenomenon observed e.g. in quantum mechanics and optics. He specialises in semiclassical physics , applied to wave phenomena in quantum mechanics and other areas such as optics. Berry has a BSc in physics from the University of Exeter and a PhD from the University of St. Andrews. Since then, he has spent his whole career at the University of Bristol: Research Fellow, 1965-7; Lecturer, 1967–74; Reader, 1974–78; Professor of Physics, 1978–88; Royal Society Research Professor since 1988.
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John Campbell Hamilton-Gordon, 1st Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair KT GCMG GCVO PC , known as The Earl of Aberdeen from 1870 to 1916, was a Scottish... politician. Born in Edinburgh, Hamilton-Gordon held office in several countries, serving twice as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and serving from 1893 to 1898 as the seventh Governor General of Canada. Aberdeen was born in Edinburgh to George Hamilton-Gordon, 5th Earl of Aberdeen and his wife Mary Baillie, daughter of George Baillie and sister to George Baillie-Hamilton, 10th Earl of Haddington. He studied at the University of St Andrews and University College, Oxford. He succeeded as 7th Earl of Aberdeen following the death of his eldest brother, George, 6th Earl of Aberdeen. In 1877 he married Ishbel Maria Marjoribanks, daughter to Dudley Marjoribanks, later 1st Baron Tweedmouth, and Isabella Weir-Hogg. It seems that their marriage was a love match as they were long time friends and Ishbel developed a crush on Hamilton-Gordon at just 14. Lady Aberdeen, was an LL.D. of Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. She served as President of the International Council of Women, 1893-99.
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Sir James Whyte Black OM FRS FRSE FRCP was a Scottish doctor and pharmacologist. He spent his career both as researcher and as an academic at... several universities. Black established the physiology department at the University of Glasgow, where he became interested in the effects of adrenaline on the human heart. He went to work for ICI Pharmaceuticals in 1958 and, while there, developed propranolol, a beta blocker used for the treatment of heart disease. Black was also responsible for the development of cimetidine, a drug used in a similar manner to treat stomach ulcers. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1988 for work leading to the development of propranolol and cimetidine. Black was born on 14 June 1924 in Uddingston, Lanarkshire, the fourth of five sons of a Baptist family which traced its origins to Balquhidder, Perthshire. His father was a mining engineer. He was brought up in Fife, educated at Beath High School, Cowdenbeath, and, at the age of 15, won a scholarship to the University of St Andrews, where he studied medicine.
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John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a... scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report. In the late 1960s he became a member of Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the sketch show Monty Python's Flying Circus and the four Monty Python films: And Now for Something Completely Different, The Holy Grail, Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life. In the mid 1970s, Cleese and his first wife, Connie Booth, co-wrote and starred in the British sitcom Fawlty Towers. Later, he co-starred with Kevin Kline, Jamie Lee Curtis and former Python colleague Michael Palin in A Fish Called Wanda and Fierce Creatures. He also starred in Clockwise, and has appeared in many other films, including two James Bond films as R/Q, two Harry Potter films and three Shrek films. With Yes Minister writer Antony Jay he co-founded Video Arts, a production company making entertaining training films. Cleese was born in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, the only child of Muriel Evelyn , and Reginald Francis Cleese , who worked in insurance sales.
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