Hungarian students studying at Glasgow created a small, but steady group between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twenty-first centuries.
More than half of the alumni had attended the University to study Theology, which can be explained by the historical events of the period. During the early modern Habsburg Era, Protestantism was undesirable and often punishable in Hungary, therefore prospective ministers of the Lutheran and Calvinist Churches journeyed to North-Western Europe to study Protestant theology. And this peregrination remained an important tradition of Protestant pastor training. This is illustrated by the itinerary of Koncz Sándor, who attended colleges of the Reformed Church as Sárospatak (Hungary), Basel (Switzerland) and Glasgow.
It is the Calvinist foundation which links the Reformed Church of Hungary to its Scottish equivalent, the Church of Scotland. Andrew Moody was one of the earliest Glasgow students with links to Hungary when he became a Free Church of Scotland missionary there. As a result of this mission, Saphir Adolf Áron came to Glasgow to study and become a Presbyterian minister.
Other Hungarian students likewise enrolled at the University to undertake courses on the Old and New Testament, divinity, biblical criticism and church history under Professors such as George Milligan and Henry Reid.
Other academic fields such as Medical and Veterinary Science, Engineering and Arts were taken up by Hungarian students, with the majority enrolling as research students.
The Second World War also had a visible impact on the number of Hungarian students at the University; Kenedi Róbert Maximilián and Ullmann István both received doctoral degrees after their experience of fleeing the effects of War and became British citizens.
