Best BT Kings Podcasts (2024)

1
525 Years of Collecting and Care: The libraries, archives and museums of the University of Aberdeen 16:40

3+ y ago16:40

16:40

For 525 years, the historic libraries, archives and museum of the University of Aberdeen have been enriched by donations, gifts and acquisitions leading to collections which are now of international significance. As a curator of that historic material, Jane Pirie identifies key donors and figures involved in the care and formation of collections fr…

1
Lord Strathcona, Canada, and the University of Aberdeen, 1820-1906 34:18

3+ y ago34:18

34:18

This podcast focuses on the career of one of the University’s major benefactors at the turn of the twentieth Century, its Forres-born Chancellor Donald Smith, Lord Strathcona from 1897. It traces his connection to the University and then tracks back, looking at how he acquired wealth and prestige at the heart of the transition in British North Amer…

1
Economics at Aberdeen: The Legacy of Sir Thomas Jaffrey, Bt (1855-1953) 17:34

3+ y ago17:34

17:34

In this year of the 525th anniversary of the University of Aberdeen, its Department of Economics is also celebrating an anniversary – the centenary of the Jaffrey Chair in Political Economy. This podcast by Economics Professor Keith Bender highlights the life of Sir Thomas Jaffrey Bt, the early 20th century Aberdonian banker and philanthropist who …

1
The Influence of Professor Herbert J.C. Grierson, 1866-1960 19:46

3+ y ago19:46

19:46

Cairns Craig, Glucksman Professor of Irish and Scottish Studies, recounts the influence of the first holder of the chair in English Literature at Aberdeen University, Professor H.J.C. Grierson. Grierson was closely involved with major poets of the early twentieth century, such as W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot, because of the influence of his edition of…

1
James Ramsay (1733-1789): Scottish Abolitionism in the Anglo-Atlantic World 19:33

3+ y ago19:33

19:33

This podcast explores the life and influence of the Rev. James Ramsay, an Anglican priest, ship’s surgeon, and pioneering abolitionist who was educated at King’s College between 1749 and 1753. Ramsay’s anti-slavery convictions were born out of the experience of fifteen years as a preacher and medical attendant to the enslaved population of the isla…

1
James Beattie (1735-1803): Philosopher and Poet 14:12

4y ago14:12

14:12

In 1773 James Beattie, professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic at Marischal College, Aberdeen, visited London to petition (successfully) for a royal pension on the back of his sudden fame as author of An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, In Opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism (1770), an attack on the ‘infidelity’ of the times, and t…

1
Thomas Reid (1710-1796): The Wise Club in the Aberdeen Enlightenment 19:29

4y ago19:29

19:29

The intellectual history of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, known as the ‘Wise Club’ after its founding in 1758, maps onto the institutional history of King’s and Marischal colleges in the eighteenth century. The proceedings of philosophical and literary societies were woven into the fabric of eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment intellect…

1
Duncan Liddel (1561-1613): Medicine and Mathematics during Northern Europe's Age of Confessionalisation 27:14

4y ago27:14

27:14

The endowment of a chair in Mathematics in 1613 was one of Duncan Liddel's most important legacies for Marischal College. After a life of study in Poland and Northern Germany, and a career of over ten years at one of Germany's famous Protestant reform universities in Helmstedt, under the patronage of Julius of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Liddel returne…

1
The Local Rise and International Role of Marischal College, 1593-1860 19:12

4y ago19:12

19:12

From its inception the purpose of Marischal College is fascinating. Most historical discussion has centred on its being a more seriously ‘Protestant’ alternative to the Episcopal (by which many mean crypto-Catholic) King’s College in Old Aberdeen. Unfortunately, this does not hold up to scrutiny. Founded as a civic university that catered to the so…

1
Before and after Bishop Elphinstone: Creativity and learning in medieval and renaissance Aberdeen 18:54

4y ago18:54

18:54

King’s College has a prehistory. Dr Jackson Armstrong (Senior Lecturer in History, University of Aberdeen) sheds new light on the founding of King’s College as a kingdom-building endeavour that underscored Scottish engagement with the age of the renaissance. This involved the tenure of Archdeacon John Barbour at the medieval cathedral of St Machar’…