Principals of the University of Edinburgh

• 1586 Robert Rollock (Regent from 1583 to 1586)
• 1599 Henry Charteris
• 1620 Patrick Sands
• 1622 Robert Boyd
• 1623 John Adamson (died in office in 1652 but the original successor, William Colvill, was unable to take the position until 1662)
• 1653 Robert Leighton
• 1662 William Colvill
• 1675 Andrew Cant
• 1685 Alexander Monro
• 1690 Gilbert Rule
• 1703 William Carstares
• 1716 William Wishart (primus)
• 1730 William Hamilton
• 1732 James Smith
• 1736 William Wishart (secundus)
• 1754 John Gowdie
• 1762 William Robertson
• 1793 George Husband Baird
• 1840 John Lee
• 1859 David Brewster
• 1868 Alexander Grant
• 1885 William Muir
• 1903 William Turner
• 1916 Alfred Ewing
• 1929 Thomas Henry Holland
• 1944 John Fraser
• 1948 Edward Victor Appleton
• 1965 Michael Swann
• 1974 Hugh Robson
• 1979 John Harrison Burnett
• 1987 David Smith
• 1994 Stewart Sutherland
• 2002 Timothy O'Shea
• 2018 Peter Mathieson