Donald MacAlister



Sir Donald MacAlister, 1st Baronet of Tarbert KCB (17 May 1854–15 January 1934) was a physician, and principal and vice-chancellor and, later, chancellor of the university of Glasgow.

Early life
Donald MacAlister was born in Perth, Scotland. He was a native speaker of Gaelic. He rose in life from humble beginnings via school at the Liverpool Institute for Boys (founded 1825, closed 1985) to become Senior Wrangler at Cambridge University in 1877. In November 1877 he was elected a fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge.

Academic Career
MacAlister remained a fellow of St. John's College until the end of his life, and was senior tutor from 1900 to 1904. In 1879 he published a paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society on "The Law of the Geometric Mean." The work was in response to a question put by Francis Galton and contains what is now called the log-normal distribution.

After a spell teaching mathematics at Harrow School, MacAlister returned to his original intention of studying medicine, first at Cambridge, later in 1879 at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and for a short time at Leipzig. In 1881 he settled in Cambridge, and took up medical teaching, investigation, and practice, and in 1884, when he graduated M.D., of physician to Addenbrooke's Hospital. He was elected F.R.C.P. in 1886.

MacAlister was a contemporary at St. John's of the first Japanese graduate of Cambridge named Kikuchi Dairoku and they were lifelong friends. MacAlister also assisted Inagaki Manjiro with a petition to the Council of the Senate to allow Japanese students to obtain exemption from the study of Latin and Greek for entrance examinations.

MacAlister played a very important part in the work of the General Medical Council (GMC). He was elected to it in 1889 as representative of Cambridge University and became its president in 1904. In 1931, after an unbroken twenty-seven years in office, he stood down on grounds of ill health.

In 1907 Donald MacAlister was appointed principal of the University of Glasgow, a position from which he retired in 1929. During those years the university grew substantially. MacAlister took a leading part in the university business of the country. He was one of the founders of the Universities Bureau of the British Empire, and was for many years chairman of the standing Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of the British universities.

MacAlister's work was widely recognised; he received honorary doctorates from thirteen universities and was appointed KCB in 1908 and created a baronet in 1924.