This was a great period for educational building in Glasgow. From the late 1840s the University was keen to move from its cramped accommodation and increasingly insalubrious surroundings in the High Street to the leafy West End. After a false start, the new buildings were finally started on Gilmorehill in the late 1860s. Although the university moved there in 1870, the main building was not completed until the 1890s. The finished tower still dominates the city skyline. With the development of laboratory teaching in the sciences, other buildings were soon added to the campus to house sciences and medical departments.
In the mid-1830s David Hamilton designed the fine Free Normal Seminary in Garnethill for training teachers in Free Church schools. At the turn of the century the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College replaced its old building in George Street with an imposing red sandstone edifice which survives as part of the University of Strathclyde.
Less striking but just as important were the large number of new school buildings. Some of these were private, such as the Glasgow Academy buildings in Elmbank Street and beside Kelvinbridge, but the majority were public, constructed by the Glasgow and other School Boards after they were established in 1874. Some of these are striking buildings, notably Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Scotland Street School in Kinning Park built for the Govan School Board in the 1890s. It now does duty as a museum of education. Many have now ceased to be schools but their original purpose can often plainly be detected.