Robert Halliday Gunning

Robert Halliday Gunning FRSE PRPSE FSA LLD (1818-1900) was a Scottish surgeon, entrepreneur and philanthropist. He did much to improve social conditions in Brazil but also became very rich there. He endowed numerous prizes and awards including the Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prizes. Edinburgh University also still provides scholarships under the title of Gunning Victoria Jubilee Bursaries. He was a close friend of both Thomas Chalmers and Robert Christison.

He was born Richard Halliday Gunnion on 12 December 1818 at Wood House in Ruthwell on the southern coast of Dumfriesshire. He was the eighth of ten children to James Gunnion and Elizabeth Affleck McWilliam. In 1822 they moved to Kirkbean on the opposite side of the River Nith and later to New Abbey before settling in Dumfries. He was educated at the local school in Ruthwell then Dumfries Academy.

He studied Medicine at Edinburgh University from around 1832. From 1835 he worked on the staff of Dumfries & Galloway Royal Infirmary. In 1839, aged only 20, he was licensed to practice as a surgeon by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. In 1840 he went to Marischal College in Aberdeen to act as Demonstrator to Prof Allan Thomson (a demonstrator performs surgery on cadavers whilst the professor lectures). In 1841 both Thomson and Gunning went to Edinburgh University, Thomson to take over as Professor of Physiology, Gunning to oversee the anatomy rooms under Prof Monro. Gunning was very skilled, and in one of the world’s most prestigious centres for the training of doctors in the mid-19th century. His pupils included William Tennant Gairdner, William Overend Priestley and Henry Duncan Littlejohn. The university granted him his doctorate (MD) in 1846.

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