Visualising Historical University Records to Explore the Colonial Connections of the Students and Alumni of the University of St Andrews, 1700–1897

This paper uses the historical student records of the University of St Andrews to demonstrate how an exploration of the student community can contribute to our understanding of the ways UK universities have been implicated in British colonial/imperial activities. It also contributes to the investigation of student origins, international student mobility and alumni career patterns. Using digital technology, we identified 901 individuals who came from or later lived or worked in the colonies and who studied at (or were accredited by) St Andrews between 1700 and 1897. Furthermore, we developed a custom-built, web-based and interactive visualisation to better understand the chronological, geographical and career trends within the records. This allowed us to explore trends in finer detail than traditional tabular statistics and it was crucial in directing our attention to particular groups of people. We close with reflections on the challenges involved in using information visualisation on incomplete historical records.