Tag Archives: nutrition

Want to know more about GCU’s history – read on…

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A Wellcome Trust Research Resources Project

Our Wellcome Trust Research Resources funded project “Poverty, Health, Diet and Education in Glasgow: from Domestic Science to the Allied Health Professions, 1875-1993” is now finished. With its completion comes three comprehensive online catalogues, a glimpse into the archives via a new online exhibition and a set of blogs and tweets built up over a one year period. The door is now open for you to delve in and better understand the amazing story of one strand of our founding institutions. Continue reading →

What’s cooking in the “Poverty, Health, Diet and Education in Glasgow” project

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A Wellcome Trust Research Resources Project

We are now two-thirds of the way into the twelve month Wellcome Trust funded project “Poverty, Health, Diet and Education in Glasgow: from Domestic Science to the Allied Health Professions, 1875-1993”. The collections of the Glasgow School of Cookery, West End School of Cookery and the Queen’s College, Glasgow (formerly the Glasgow and West of Scotland College of Domestic Science), are looking very different to when I introduced the project in my first blog, ‘Cooking up a College Catalogue’, back in December. The once colourful shelves filled with an assortment of volumes, boxfiles and miscellaneous boxes have now been transformed into a wall of uniform green archive boxes. Perhaps not so visually stimulating to look at, but giving a real feeling of satisfaction to see so many of the records arranged, cleaned, catalogued and preserved for future access.

Each box, filled with yellow archive folders containing the records, now gives no clues to its contents except for the all-important reference code written on the side, providing the link with the catalogue entry in AtoM. Continue reading →

Trials and tribulations of new ventures

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A Wellcome Trust Research Resources Project

The School of Health and Life Sciences at Glasgow Caledonian University offers a number of undergraduate and postgraduate courses in nursing.  What is perhaps less well known is that its predecessor institution, the Glasgow and West of Scotland College of Domestic Science (GWSCDS), had ventured into nursing-related courses as early as 1925.

image of a page from the prosectus with details of the course for sister tutors and dieticians

GWSCDS 1926/27 Prospectus

The Diploma and certificate course for sister tutors and dietitians was developed in response to a shortage of nurses and dietitians in the workforce. It was open to trained nurses who would gain the qualification to enable them to teach nurses in training schools.  It was also open to Group I diploma students (diploma in cookery, laundrywork and housewifery) who could qualify as hospital, hotel or institutional dietitians.  Classes started in September Continue reading →

It’s all in the chemistry: Mary Andross and food research

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black and white photograph of woman pouring milk into a pan with a laboratory display around her.

Mary Andross  demonstrating her research at the College’s Nutrition Centre, The Empire Exhibition 1938

A Wellcome Trust Research Resources Project

Mary Andross (1893-1968) joined the staff of the Glasgow and West of Scotland College of Domestic Science (GWSCDS – later named The Queen’s College, Glasgow) in September 1924 as lecturer in Chemistry but her influence extended far beyond its walls. She is remembered more widely for her pioneering development of training for dieticians and the research she carried out on the nutritional content of foods.

After graduating with a BSc from the University of Glasgow, she worked with Professor George G Henderson, eventually becoming a Chemistry Assistant Continue reading →

Tackling food poverty: from peacetime to wartime and back again

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A Wellcome Trust Research Resources Project

Over the festive season people are busy shopping, partying and feasting on rich food. For many, it is a time of extravagance and over-indulgence but it is also a time to remember that there are people who are less fortunate and need help to avoid poverty and hunger.

At the end of the 19th century, it was families struggling on low incomes that the Glasgow School of Cookery (GSC) and West End School of Cookery aimed to help, not just within their own walls, but by taking their knowledge and expertise out into the community. Teaching staff travelled widely around Glasgow and the towns and villages further afield, Continue reading →

Cooking up a College Catalogue

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A Wellcome Trust Research Resources Project

photograph of document boxes and volumes on shelvesOn first walking into the archive store and seeing the rows of shelves lined with fascinating objects, books, folders and boxes of different shapes and sizes, it is hard not to compare them with larder shelves, especially  knowing that the archive collections are from cookery schools and a college of domestic science.  Each shelf holds an assortment of coloured packages which when opened reveal the ingredients that provide the different flavours of life that went on within those institutions.  These are the archives of three of Glasgow Caledonian University’s predecessor institutions and The Wellcome Trust has funded a 12 month project, “Poverty, Health, Diet and Education in Glasgow: from Domestic Science to the Allied Health Professions, 1875-1993”, to sort, catalogue, preserve and share the collections.

On the menu we have two starters, the Glasgow School of Cookery (1875) and the West End School of Cookery (1878), rival cookery schools Continue reading →