John Young

John Young (1835 – 1902) was a British Regius Professor of Natural History at Glasgow University and head of the Hunterian Museum.

Young worked as a medical doctor after qualifying at the University of Edinburgh in 1857. He then worked on the Geological Survey which was a good move as the retiring Regius Chair of Natural History in Glasgow was becoming vacant and the last person, Henry Darwin Rogers, who had died, was a geologist. Young had a medical and geological background which he used to teach students Zoology and Geology. Young was interested in coins and was widely read. He published work on palaeontology.

He was also head of the Hunterian Museum which contained the eclectic gatherings of its founder. Young realised that the museum was intended to support teaching. On the one hand he proposed that the collections of coins should be sold, on the other hand he brought in fresh fossils from Girvan which had been gathered by the enthusiastic fossil collector Elizabeth Gray.

Young organised for the museum to move to Gilmorehill in 1870. After he died in 1902 his library was purchased by a benefactor as a gift to the university.

• Catalogue of Pictures, Sculptures and Other Works of Art in the University of Glasgow, 1880