The money to build the museum, and the core of its original collections, came from the bequest of the Scottish anatomist and scientist William Hunter, who died in London in 1783. As well as his medical collections, which arose from his own work, Hunter collected very widely, often assisted by his many royal and aristocratic patrons. He and his agents scoured Europe for coins, minerals, paintings and prints, ethnographic materials, books and manuscripts, as well as insects and other biological specimens.

Since Hunter's death, the collections have grown considerably, and now inlcude some of the most important collections of work by artists such as Charles Rennie Mackintosh and James McNeill Whistler, as well as superb geological, zoological, anatomical, archaeological, ethnographic and scientific instrument collections.

Parts of the collections catalogues have been transferred to computer catalogue, and can be searched here: http://www.huntsearch.gla.ac.uk/ More general information is available at http://www.hunterian.gla.ac.uk/