William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, was a British mathematician, mathematical physicist and engineer born in Belfast. He was the professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow for 53 years, where he undertook significant research and mathematical analysis of electricity, the formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and contributed significantly to unifying physics, which was then in its infancy of development as an emerging academic discipline. He received the Royal Society's Copley Medal in 1883 and served as its president from 1890 to 1895. In 1892, he became the first British scientist to be elevated to the House of Lords.

The University of Glasgow is a public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in 1451 [O.S. 1450], it is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Along with the universities of St Andrews, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh, the university was part of the Scottish Enlightenment during the 18th century. Glasgow is the largest university in Scotland by total enrolment and with over 19,500 postgraduates the second-largest in the United Kingdom by postgraduate enrolment.