Quatercentenary Celebrations, 1906

Postcards

Lavish celebrations took place as the public thronged the streets to catch a glimpse of the processions of invited dignitaries, graduates, military units, and bands. In all, the cost of the four days of festivities was the modern equivalent of £1.34 million.

Wednesday 26th September 1906 saw the University confer honorary degrees on a host of “scientists, poets, musicians, explorers, inventors, discoverers, doctors, administrators, statesmen, judges, and philosophers”. Among those honoured in person or in absentia were the composer Sir Edward Elgar, Guglielmo Marconi, wireless pioneer, the Egyptologist Flinders Petrie, as well as Marischal’s architect, Alexander Marshall Mackenzie.

This photograph shows the famous industrialist and philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie, leaving the ceremony having been awarded an honorary doctor of laws. Carnegie was appointed University Rector in 1911, succeeding the Rt Hon Herbert Henry Asquith, MP, which post he held until 1914.

After the departure of their majesties to Ballater, the University Chancellor, Lord Strathcona, entertained around 2500 invited guests in a tent specially designed for the occasion. Dignatories sat at 73 tables and were served nine courses by 500 waiters, including a tortue claire soup which took 90 turtles to make. The evening concluded with an impressive fireworks display for the general public at the Broad Hill. The total cost of Strathcona’s extravaganza was £8518, the equivalent in today’s money of £610,000.

All manner of odes, panegyrics and verses were penned and commissioned for the occasion. This poem, by the novelist Thomas Hardy, was published in a commemorative edition of the student publication, Alma Mater, and was modestly described by Hardy as a “very poor contribution”.

The University had conferred on Hardy the honorary degree of LLD in April 1905, his first academic distinction. The Archives also holds the manuscript of 'An Imaginative Woman', a short story from his Wessex Tales series, which was presented by Hardy to the Library in 1911.

Over 50 congratulatory addresses were received by the University from other universities, colleges and learned societies, nearly all of which survive in the Archives. The addresses are in a variety of languages and are in either book or roll format. Many are transcribed in P.J. Anderson's published record of the Quatercentenary Celebrations, 1906, at Appendix G.