ABSTRACT
1854 saw the publication not only of Innes four-volume Glasgow University Muniments for the Maitland Club but also the Aberdeen Fasti, relating to King's College in Aberdeen, for the Spalding Club. To an extent these can be seen as just another manifestation of the nineteenth-century record movement; products of the publishing clubs' patriotic mission to reconstitute Scotland's past through the publication of its documentary remains. The publication of university records was on one level just another step on the same road. In the mid-nineteenth century, however, the Scottish education system and the character of the universities in particular were the subjects of a prolonged and high-profile debate to which questions of tradition and reform were central. Finally and most significantly in terms of Innes's work with university records, it seems likely that he was by the mid-1850s aware that the winds of change were blowing but that their direction was still unclear.
