
On this day in 1983 The Burrell Collection was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in Pollok Park, Glasgow.
The £20m gallery contains more than 8,000 works of art collected by Glasgow shipping magnate, Sir William Burrell, who died in 1958. After amassing a fortune thanks to shrewd business sense, Burrell dedicated his retirement to travelling the world procuring a huge, eclectic selection of high quality artworks. In 1947 he bequeathed the collection to the people of Glasgow, but stipulated that it must be housed in a rural setting. The difficulty of finding a location meant he never saw his dream realised. It was not until the MacDonald family left their Pollok Estaste to the City of Glasgow in 1967 that a suitable site was found.


