Patrick Geddes and museum ideas in Dundee and beyond

One of the first things Patrick Geddes did on taking up the post of Professor of Botany at University College, Dundee was to establish a botanical museum. Throughout his life museums were of great importance to him, and were central to his theories as an educationalist. The Outlook Tower in Edinburgh was the most famous demonstration of these theories, but this short introductory paper also looks at less well known aspects of them, such as his ground-breaking paper to the Museums Association conference in Dundee in 1907, his unpublished book.Museums: Actual and Possible, and his attempts to win the directorship of the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art