Gift of Greek wisdom is granted to Glasgow University in professor’s will

By SHÂN ROSS
Published on Wednesday 18 January 2012 00:00

AN ACADEMIC who built up a secret fortune has left more than £2 million to revive the Chair of Greek at Glasgow University, a post that has been dormant for a decade.

Colleagues said Professor Douglas MacDowell had remonstrated unsuccessfully with officials at the university to keep the post filled when he retired as head of the department in 2001.

They said he was annoyed that the chair fell victim to cost-cutting after the departments of Greek and Latin merged.

The classics later became a “subject area” in the university’s school of humanities.

Yesterday it emerged that the quiet-living professor, who died in 2010 aged 78, had stated in his will that his portfolio of stock and shares, valued at about £2.4m, was to be used to re- establish the chair.

Prof MacDowell, an opera-lover who lived in a £100,000 flat in Byres Road, near the university, drove a £1,228 Daihatsu hatchback. His furniture and personal belongings were valued at £2,767 and his stamp collection at £900.

However, the bulk of his fortune was built up through shrewd financial investments, including £115,000 of BP shares and £82,000 of shares in Rio Tinto, the mining giant.

His will reveals he left a total fortune of £2,157,176.28, with instructions for £90,000 to be divided between friends and family and for £10,000 to be given to the National Trust for Scotland.

The remaining money has been held in an endowment fund now valued at £2.4m.

Applications for the position will be advertised in the spring and an appointment made in time for the start of the new 2012 academic year.

Matthew Fox, professor of classics at Glasgow University, said the bequest would increase the subject’s standing at home and overseas.

“The news about the chair came as a big surprise. I had absolutely no idea it was going to happen. It will greatly enhance the subject’s research strengths and draw attention to classics at Glasgow.”

Prof Fox added: “This has a ‘political’ aspect too, as an endowed chair is rather unusual in this country. It will make us feel more secure and will give us a firm degree of visibility within the university, nationally and internationally.”

The university has six students studying Greek at honours level, including two taking a joint degree in Greek and Latin. Last year, three students graduated in single-honours Greek. Another 21 students are studying it at level 1, some in first year and others as part of other degrees.

Dr Ronald Knox, a former colleague of Prof MacDowell and one of the executors of his will, said: “The decline of the teaching of Greek in schools hit us. If people wanted to study, they had to study it from scratch.

“But it became more popular after the introduction of a classical civilisation honours degree, and as numbers grew there was the realisation that if they wanted to do it in any depth, they had to learn the language.”

A university spokesman said: “Classics teaching remains strong, and no cuts have been made to [its] provision as a result of university restructuring.”

PROFILE

DOUGLAS Maurice MacDowell (1931-2010) was professor of Greek at the University of Glasgow from 1971 to 2001.

Following his appointment, Prof MacDowell transformed the subject by introducing courses in Greek civilisation that did not require a knowledge of the language.

After graduating from Balliol College, Oxford he held various teaching positions, including reader at the University of Manchester.

He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a Fellow of the British Academy.