The Endowment Association
The Endowment Association – formally, the ‘Association for the better endowment and extension of the University of St Andrews’ – had its origins in 1865, but was reconstituted in 1877. In its later incarnation, it had two main aims: to fund more (and more valuable) bursaries to encourage more students to come to St Andrews; and to expand, and better remunerate, the St Andrews professoriate.
The wider context was the well-known financial difficulties of the University. Student numbers were small, and were not growing (in contrast to the other three Scottish universities, situated in expanding cities). While small class sizes might have their benefits, this was a financial weakness. Professorial salaries were inadequate, making it difficult to recruit and retain the best staff; and St Andrews could not teach such a wide range of subjects as some of the other universities. Thus, the Association hoped to raise funds to support both students and staff.
Membership of the Association was open to all St Andrews ‘graduates and old alumni’, with a subscription of 10 shillings a year (or £10 for life membership). One-off donations were also welcome. Subscribers and donors were invited to specify whether they wished to support existing bursaries; create new bursaries; create scholarships to enable graduates to undertake further study; augment the endowment of existing chairs; or create new chairs. If no purpose was specified, the funds would be applied to augment the Foundation Bursaries.
According to historian of the University, Ronald Cant (Short History, p.144), the Association did help improve the University’s fortunes:
It appears to have funded (at least) two bursaries: the Endowment Association Bursary (1876, for a bursary tenable during the whole course of the student’s studies) and the New Endowment Association Bursary (1877, for a first-year student, tenable for one year). The association appears to have been still active in the early twentieth century.
Sources: Cant The University of St Andrews: A Short History, p.144; Association for the better endowment and extension of the University of St Andrews (1878)