Andrew Ure FRS (18 May 1778 – 2 January 1857) was a Scottish physician, chemist, scriptural geologist, and early business theorist who founded the Garnet Hill Observatory.

[1] He replaced George Birkbeck as professor of natural philosophy (specialising in chemistry and physics) in 1804 at the recently formed Andersonian Institution (now known as University of Strathclyde).

[1][a] In 1814, while giving guest lectures in Belfast, Ure consulted for the Irish linen board, and devised an 'alkalimeter' which gave volumetric estimates of the alkali contents of industrial substances.

[1] On 4 November 1818 Ure assisted the professor of anatomy, James Jeffray,[4] in experiments he had been carrying out on the body of a murderer named Matthew Clydesdale, after the man's execution by hanging.

[6] Every muscle of the body was immediately agitated with convulsive movements resembling a violent shuddering from cold ... On moving the second rod from hip to heel, the knee being previously bent, the leg was thrown out with such violence as nearly to overturn one of the assistants, who in vain tried to prevent its extension.

When the supraorbital nerve was excited 'every muscle in his countenance was simultaneously thrown into fearful action; rage, horror, despair, anguish, and ghastly smiles, united their hideous expressions in the murderer's face, surpassing far the wildest representations of Fuseli or a Kean.

His work included acting as an expert witness, taking on government commissions, and making industrial tours of England, Belgium, and France.

[1] His exposure to factory conditions led him to consider methods of heating and ventilation for workers, and he is credited with being the first to describe a bi-metallic thermostat.

because "the New System of Geology ... came just too late, at a time when the positions it so noisily defended were being quietly abandoned, leaving the author in slightly ridiculous isolation.

[16] Michael Faraday's posthumous description of him was: …his skill and accuracy were well known as well as the ingenuity of the methods employed in his researches … and it has been stated that no one of his results has ever been impugned.

His extensive knowledge enabled him to arrive at conclusions, and to demonstrate facts considered impossible by his compeers in science[17]He is buried in the Terrace Catacombs of Highgate Cemetery.

His eldest son, Alexander Ure (1808 - 13 June 1866), one of the senior surgeons of St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington, is also buried at Highgate Cemetery.