As Dundee’s campaign to be selected as the UK City of Culture for 2017 gains momentum, we wanted to share with you some interesting facts about the city. Today we’re exploring 5 things you didn’t know about Dundee:
1. The inventor of the adhesive postage stamp was born in Dundee
In 1782 James Chalmers, inventor of the adhesive postage stamp was born in Dundee. James Chalmers was born on February 2nd 1782 in Arbroath. James Chalmers trained as a weaver before he moved to Dundee in 1809 on the recommendation of his brother. Mr Chalmers established himself as a bookseller, printer and a newspaper publisher on Castle Street, Dundee. However his most burning enthusiasm was postal reform and in 1837 he submitted a letter outlining his proposal for an adhesive postage stamp.
2. The first radio broadcast was sent from Dundee
Lindsay Bowman was born on 8th September 1799 and was credited as being both an inventor and an author. He’s acknowledged for innovations in several fields including incandescent lighting and telegraphy. Lindsay Bowman was actually born in Arbroath and was trained as a handloom weaver. He matriculated from St Andrews University in 1821 and returned to Dundee in 1829 as a lecturer in science and mathematics at the Watt Institution. In 1832 he sent the first wireless radio broadcast from Dundee.
3. The richest square mile in the UK was in Dundee
Dundee is the fourth largest city in Scotland and encompasses Broughty Ferry, which was actually once referred to as the richest square mile in Europe. The jute barons in Dundee saw Broughty Ferry as the ideal place to build mansions and so the city was acknowledged as being prosperous, more so than any other location in the UK or in fact Europe as a whole. Broughty Ferry is now better known for the ‘N’everday Dook’ which sees some 150 swimmers brave the freezing conditions of the river tay for a swim on new years day.
4. In Dundee in 1965 construction began on the largest teaching hospital in Europe
According to Wikipedia, to this day, Ninewells hospital located in Dundee is acknowledged as the largest teaching hospital in Europe. The hospital is renowned internationally for introducing ‘laparoscopic surgery’ in the UK as well as innovating in fields such as managing cancer, robotic surgery and medical genetics. In 2009 the Ninewells medical centre in Dundee was ranked as number one in the UK.
5. In 2010 Dundee was voted as one of the seven smartest cities in the world
In 2010 Dundee was selected by the Intelligent Community Forum as the only city in Scotland to be voted as one of the seven smartest in the entire world. The Intelligent Community Forum is a non-profit policy research organisation, which is focused on job creation and economic development in the broadband economy. And, now in 2018, Dundee has been included in a list of top European destinations for 2018.The Scottish city is the only UK entry on the list from guide book publisher Lonely Planet. Not only is Dundee famous now for the V&A Dundee museum but also it’s become known as a centre of excellence for technology and award winning mobile app development companies including Waracle!
Waracle, part of the Exception Group, are the UK’s leading digital solutions specialist. Since 2008 Waracle have engaged with large UK and international organisations to plan and execute their digital product strategies. Waracle now have offices in Dundee, Glasgow, Edinburgh and London with a rapidly growing team of industry leading UX designers, scrum-masters, iOS, Android and Hybrid developers, IoT, Voice (we’re Amazon Alexa Skills Approved) , QA and App Store Optimisation experts.