Lord Strathcona, Canada, and the University of Aberdeen, 1820-1906

525 Years in the Pursuit of Truth: A New History of The University of Aberdeen

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 America from a fur trading empire to a settler-dominated confederation. It contributes to the consideration of legacies of empire in and beyond the University today by emphasising the need to take account of the multifaceted nature of empire itself.