John Anderson, founder of my university. Well, alright, he founded Andersons instition (which he never saw, as he bequethed it post-mortem), which then became the Royal Technical College, which then became the University of Strathclyde. And we had John Logie Baird as a pupil..when it was a college. He (John Anderson) is very much under-appreciated as a historical character in the history of Glasgow.
He was friends with James Watt, and encouraged him in the development of steam power. He knew Benjamin Franklin, and from that worked on his own on electricity at a time when 'working on electricity' was akin to working with uranium in the early twentieth century - nobody really knew what the hell they were doing, but something scientifically interesting was clearly going on. He funded and built a better cannon, tried to sell it to the British - who weren't interested - and ended up selling it to the French!
On that last one, he was a radical, and supported the French revolution. He was radical in other ways too; as a believer in 'useful education' he ran classes for artisans in the evenings, and - and this is the unusual part, for the times - allowed women entry too! At the time, this must've seemed a wee bit mad, so I have nothing but respect for a man who was clearly ahead of the curve in that area.
Anyway, interesting man in interesting times, with that type of egalitarianism that only really seems to have been fashionable in the 18th century - all humans are equal, should be given every chance to compete equally, and as a result there's no excuse not to make something of yourself. And 18th century Glasgow was cool (not as cool as 19th century Glasgow, though).
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