King's College

King's College was the first university in Aberdeen, the third in Scotland and the fifth in the British Isles. In 1495, William Elphinstone, the relatively newly appointed Bishop of Aberdeen, petitioned Pope Alexander VI on behalf of King James IV to create the facility to cure the ignorance he had witnessed within his parish and in the north generally. The papal bull Primo Erectio Universitatis was issued by Pope Alexander VI on 19 February 1495 (10 February 1494 O.S.), founding the university; a royal charter later that year recognised Aberdeen's status as equal to that of Scotland's two existing universities at Glasgow and St Andrews. As a former professor at the University of Paris,…

The King's College Conference Centre is a conference and events space within the King's College building, established in 1991 within the former university library, yet maintaining many of the original features of the buildings. The conference centre housed the Scottish Parliament between 28 and 30 May 2002 whilst the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland took over its usual annual residence at New College, Edinburgh (the assembly hall of which it had lent the Scottish Parliament during the time of the construction of the new parliament building in Holyrood). During this time, the parliament was addressed by The Queen as part of her Golden Jubilee tour of the United Kingdom.