The Scottish Polymath Who Inspired Frankenstein and Pioneered Industrial Science
Andrew Ure was one of 19th-century Scotland's most remarkable yet controversial scientific figures. A physician, chemist, astronomer, geologist, and industrial consultant, Ure's career spanned the breadth of scientific enquiry during the Industrial Revolution. His galvanisation experiments on executed criminals captured public imagination and allegedly inspired Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, whilst his pioneering work in industrial chemistry and his defence of factory conditions made him both celebrated and vilified. From founding Glasgow's prestigious observatory to becoming Britain's first professional consulting chemist, Ure's life was marked by brilliant innovation, public scandal, and unwavering scientific curiosity.
Early Life and Medical Training
Born in Glasgow on 18 May 1778, Andrew Ure came from relatively modest origins - his father, Alexander Ure, was a cheesemonger, and his mother was Anne Ure. Despite this humble background, young Andrew received an excellent education that would lay the foundation for his extraordinary career. He enrolled at the University of Glasgow to study medicine, where he was taught by notable figures including James Jeffray, the Regius Professor of Botany and later Professor of Anatomy. Ure's name appears in Jeffray's class roll books from 1795 to 1797, and he also spent time at the University of Edinburgh, then one of Europe's leading medical schools.
In 1801, Ure received his medical degree (MD) from the University of Glasgow. Like many young physicians of his era, he briefly served as an army surgeon before returning to Glasgow in 1803. Upon his return, he became a member of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, beginning what would become a multifaceted career that extended far beyond traditional medical practice.
Professor at Anderson's Institution
In 1804, at just 26 years old, Ure was appointed to succeed George Birkbeck as Professor of Natural Philosophy at the newly established Anderson's Institution (later known as Anderson's College, now the University of Strathclyde). This institution had been founded based on the progressive ideals of John Anderson, who believed in making scientific education accessible to working people. Ure embraced this mission wholeheartedly, specialising in chemistry and physics whilst giving evening lectures on chemistry and mechanics specifically designed for the city's artisans and working men.
These lectures were enormously successful, regularly attracting audiences of up to 500 people, including approximately 50 women - a remarkable attendance for the era. Ure covered topics including electricity, magnetism, heat, light, mechanics, hydrostatics and hydraulics, pneumatics, and astronomy. His approach was both practical and accessible, and one contemporary observer noted: "To Dr. Ure belongs the honour of having taken the lead in a movement which has had incalculable influence in developing national wealth, and promoting the interests both of science and art." His teaching model proved so influential that it inspired the foundation of similar institutes in Edinburgh, Paris (where it led to the establishment of the École des Arts et Métiers), London, and other cities across Europe.
The Garnethill Observatory
In 1808, Ure's interests expanded into astronomy when he became the driving force behind the Glasgow Society for Promoting Astronomical Science. As convenor of the society, he travelled to Largs to confer with Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane and to London to meet with leading scientists of the day. The result was the construction of the Garnethill Observatory on a site overlooking Glasgow - an ornate Egyptian-style building that cost £1,500 and was equipped with excellent instruments, including two Herschel reflectors (10 and 14 feet), a 5-foot mural circle and altazimuth instrument by Troughton, and two regulator clocks.
Ure was appointed Glasgow's first City Astronomer and director of the observatory. He and his wife resided at the observatory for several years, and its reputation became second only to Greenwich Observatory. During this period, Ure received assistance from the renowned astronomer Sir William Herschel, discoverer of Uranus, who came to Glasgow to lecture at the local Astronomical Society. Herschel helped Ure install a remarkable 14-foot reflecting telescope that Ure himself had designed and manufactured. In 1811, Ure was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, cementing his reputation in the astronomical community. However, financial difficulties eventually plagued the society, and the observatory was disbanded in 1822, with some instruments sold off and the building demolished around 1830-1832.
The Clydesdale Experiments and the Frankenstein Connection
On 4 November 1818, Andrew Ure participated in one of the most sensational scientific demonstrations of the era - experiments that would forever link his name with the gothic horror of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Working alongside his former professor James Jeffray, now Professor of Anatomy at Glasgow University, Ure conducted galvanisation experiments on the body of Matthew Clydesdale, a weaver from Airdrie in his mid-thirties who had been executed by hanging for murder.
The experiments took place in the crowded anatomy theatre, where Ure and Jeffray applied electric currents from a galvanic battery to various parts of Clydesdale's corpse. The results were dramatic and disturbing. When rods were applied to the heel, Ure reported that "the leg was thrown out with such violence as nearly to overturn one of the assistants, who in vain tried to prevent its extension." Even more unsettling, when the supraorbital nerve was stimulated, Ure wrote: "every muscle in his countenance was simultaneously thrown into fearful action; rage, horror, despair, anguish, and ghastly smiles, united their hideous expressions in the murderer's face." When electrodes were connected to the phrenic nerve and diaphragm, the corpse appeared to breathe.
Jeffray claimed that by stimulating the phrenic nerve, life could possibly be restored in cases of suffocation, drowning, or hanging. Whilst Ure never actually claimed to have resuscitated Clydesdale, the public perception was quite different, and sensational stories circulated. It is widely believed that these experiments, along with similar galvanisation demonstrations in London in 1803, helped inspire Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, which was published in March 1818. Remarkably, in his notes, Ure prophetically described a technique using "two moistened brass knobs, connected to the battery and firmly placed on the skin over the phrenic nerve and the diaphragm" - unwittingly coming close to describing the electric defibrillator that would save countless lives more than a century later.
Personal Scandal and Controversy
Whilst Ure's professional life was flourishing, his personal life was unravelling. In 1807, he had married Catherine Monteath of Greenock, with whom he had two sons (one of whom, Alexander, would later become a senior surgeon at St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington) and a daughter, Katherine. However, by 1818 - at the very time Ure was conducting his famous Clydesdale experiments - his marriage was in crisis.
Catherine had begun an affair with Granville Sharpe Pattison, the Professor of Anatomy at Anderson's Institution and one of Ure's colleagues. The scandal culminated in a highly publicised divorce trial at the Consistory Court in Edinburgh on 30 January 1819, where Ure successfully divorced Catherine on the grounds of adultery. The proceedings were so notorious that they were published in full, including an American edition printed in Philadelphia in 1821. Pattison, who had already been tried in 1813 for grave robbing (receiving a verdict of "not proven"), was forced to leave Glasgow permanently, eventually settling in America where he became a significant figure in medical education.
This scandal contributed to growing tensions at Anderson's Institution. Ure's increasingly acrimonious disputes with students in the Mechanics' Class led some of them to split away and establish the rival Glasgow Mechanics' Institution. The combination of professional conflicts and personal difficulties eventually led Ure to resign from his chair in 1830, marking the end of his Glasgow career.
Scientific Publications and Consulting Work
Throughout his Glasgow years, Ure had been building a formidable reputation as a practical chemist. In 1814, whilst giving guest lectures in Belfast, he consulted for the Irish Linen Board and devised an innovative "alkalimeter" that provided volumetric estimates of the alkali contents of industrial substances - a crucial tool for the linen industry. This work led him to develop the concept of normality in volumetric analysis, an important advancement in analytical chemistry.
In 1821, Ure published his first major work, A Dictionary of Chemistry. Originally commissioned as a revision of William Nicholson's outdated dictionary, Ure found so much of the material obsolete that he essentially rewrote the entire work. The book appeared two years after William Brande's Manual of Chemistry, and Ure was accused of plagiarism - an accusation he vigorously denied, later accusing William Henry and Thomas Thomson of plagiarising his own works. Despite the controversy, the Dictionary established Ure as a leading chemical authority.
In 1822, Ure was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, one of the highest honours in British science. He also published A New System of Geology in 1829, in which he attempted to reconcile geological findings with scripture as a "scriptural geologist." He became an original member of the Geological Society of London and promoted the study of what he called "that magnificent field of knowledge." However, the book was not well received, even among sympathetic readers, and criticised for its approach. Nonetheless, Ure contributed to geological discourse and maintained his wide-ranging scientific interests.
London Years and Pioneering Consulting Work
By 1830, Ure's outside interests and the conflicts at Anderson's Institution led him to resign from both his chair and the institution itself. He moved to London and established himself as a consulting chemist - probably the first such professional in Britain. This marked the beginning of a new phase in his career, where he combined his scientific expertise with industrial and commercial applications.
His work as a consultant was varied and influential. He acted as an expert witness in legal cases, undertook government commissions, and conducted industrial tours of England, Belgium, and France. In 1834, he was employed by the Board of Customs on a per-analysis basis (rather than with a salary), and in this capacity demonstrated remarkable integrity, willing to make financial sacrifices and risk professional friendships for the sake of scientific truth and the exposure of large-scale criminal activity related to customs fraud. Michael Faraday later attested that not one of Ure's chemical analyses was ever successfully challenged.
Industrial Philosophy and The Philosophy of Manufactures
Ure's industrial tours of textile mills in England and Scotland culminated in his most controversial publication: The Philosophy of Manufactures (1835), followed by An Account of the Cotton Industry (1836). These works dealt extensively with conditions in the textile industry, and Ure positioned himself as both a guide for factory managers and a defender of industrialisation.
In The Philosophy of Manufactures, Ure praised the conditions at certain mills, such as Samuel Greg's Quarry Bank Mill in Cheshire, noting the accommodation and care provided for apprentices. He argued that factory workers enjoyed comfortable conditions, "screened meanwhile from the summer's sun and the winter's frost, in apartments more airy and salubrious than those of the metropolis." Ure also challenged Adam Smith's theories about the division of labour, arguing that the "automatic factory" had rendered human skill less central, with employees becoming "merely machine minders."
These views made Ure a deeply controversial figure. Factory reformers accused him of minimising the genuine hardships and health problems faced by industrial workers, and his work was seen by many as apologia for exploitative working conditions. However, others valued his practical advice and systematic analysis of industrial processes. The book was translated into almost every European language, including Russian and Spanish, and The Times praised it as "a book of vast research," noting that the French translation required nineteen collaborators, all experts in their fields.
The Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures and Mines
Ure's magnum opus was the Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures and Mines, first published in 1839 (though some sources cite 1837). This encyclopaedic work drew on his decades of experience as a professor of practical science and as a consultant to manufacturers across Britain and Europe. The dictionary provided detailed information useful to manufacturers, metallurgists, merchants, students, and the general public. It was an immediate and enduring success.
Ure received 1,000 guineas for the work (equivalent to approximately £30,000 or $30,000 in modern terms). Enlarged editions rapidly followed in 1840, 1843, and 1853. After Ure's death, the work remained so valuable that four further editions appeared, with the last published in 1878. Supplementary volumes were issued in various years, including 1844, 1878, 1879, and 1881. The dictionary became a standard reference work across Europe and beyond, cementing Ure's reputation as one of the foremost authorities on industrial chemistry and manufacturing processes.
Later Years and Legacy
Andrew Ure died on 2 January 1857 at 18 Upper Seymour Street, Portman Square, London, at the age of 78. Throughout his life, he had maintained a wide circle of friends and communicated regularly with leading scientists around the world, all of whom lamented his passing. Michael Faraday's posthumous tribute captured the esteem in which Ure was held by his scientific peers: "his skill and accuracy were well known as well as the ingenuity of the methods employed in his researches... and it has been stated that no one of his results has ever been impugned. His extensive knowledge enabled him to arrive at conclusions, and to demonstrate facts considered impossible by his compeers in science."
Ure was buried in the Terrace Catacombs of Highgate Cemetery in London, where his eldest son Alexander (who died in 1866) was later also interred. A secondary memorial was erected in Glasgow Cathedral by his daughter, Katherine MacKinlay, ensuring that Scotland would remember one of its most versatile and controversial scientific sons.
Andrew Ure's legacy is complex and multifaceted. As an educator, he pioneered the teaching of science to working people and inspired similar institutions across Europe. As a scientist, he made significant contributions to chemistry, astronomy, and early forensic science. His galvanisation experiments, whilst controversial, advanced understanding of electricity and the human body, and inadvertently foreshadowed modern medical technology. As an industrial consultant, he was ahead of his time, creating a new professional role and producing reference works that remained valuable for decades. Yet his defence of factory conditions during the Industrial Revolution remains contentious, reflecting the difficult moral questions that accompanied Britain's transformation into an industrial power. Whether viewed as a visionary polymath or a controversial apologist for industrial exploitation, Andrew Ure undeniably left an indelible mark on Scottish and British scientific history.
