Magnus Linklater - The Times Great Scottish Lives - Obituaries of Scotland’s Finest

Great

SCOTTISH Lives

Great

SCOTTISH Lives

OBITUARIES OF SCOTLAND’S FINEST

EDITED BY MAGNUS LINKLATER

Magnus Linklater is the former Scotland editor of The Times and former editor of The Scotsman. He is the author of several books on current affairs and Scottish history.

TIMES BOOKS

Published by Times Books

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

Westerhill Road, Bishopbriggs,

Glasgow. G64 2QT

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Ebook first edition 2017

© Times Newspapers Ltd 2017

www.thetimes.co.uk

The Times is a registered trademark of Times Newspapers Ltd

All rights reserved under International Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

The contents of this publication are believed correct. Nevertheless the publisher can accept no responsibility for errors or omissions, changes in the detail given or for any expense or loss thereby caused.

HarperCollins does not warrant that any website mentioned in this title will be provided uninterrupted, that any website will be error free, that defects will be corrected, or that the website or the server that makes it available are free of viruses or bugs. For full terms and conditions please refer to the site terms provided on the website.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Cover Image: Sir Alexander Fleming

© Prisma/UIG/Getty Images

Ebook Edition © October 2017 ISBN: 9780008280215, version 2017-09-18

Contents

Cover

Title Great SCOTTISH Lives OBITUARIES OF SCOTLAND’S FINEST EDITED BY MAGNUS LINKLATER Magnus Linklater is the former Scotland editor of The Times and former editor of The Scotsman. He is the author of several books on current affairs and Scottish history. TIMES BOOKS

Copyright Published by Times Books An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Westerhill Road, Bishopbriggs, Glasgow. G64 2QT www.harpercollins.co.uk Ebook first edition 2017 © Times Newspapers Ltd 2017 www.thetimes.co.uk The Times is a registered trademark of Times Newspapers Ltd All rights reserved under International Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. The contents of this publication are believed correct. Nevertheless the publisher can accept no responsibility for errors or omissions, changes in the detail given or for any expense or loss thereby caused. HarperCollins does not warrant that any website mentioned in this title will be provided uninterrupted, that any website will be error free, that defects will be corrected, or that the website or the server that makes it available are free of viruses or bugs. For full terms and conditions please refer to the site terms provided on the website. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Cover Image: Sir Alexander Fleming © Prisma/UIG/Getty Images Ebook Edition © October 2017 ISBN: 9780008280215, version 2017-09-18

Contents

Introduction

Sir Walter Scott

Thomas Telford

Sir John Sinclair, Bart.

Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Napier, G.C.B

Field Marshal Sir Colin Campbell - Lord Clyde

Sir David Livingstone

Thomas Carlyle

Dr. John Rae

Robert Louis Stevenson

The Marquis of Queensberry

Lord Kelvin

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman

Keir Hardie

Dr. Elsie Inglis

Andrew Carnegie

Alexander Graham Bell

Andrew Bonar Law

Douglas Haig

Richard Burdon, Lord Haldane

Sir Robert Lorimar

Arthur James, Lord Balfour

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Patrick Geddes

Kenneth Grahame

Professor J. S. Haldane

Robert Cunninghame Graham

Phoebe Traquair

Sir J. M. Barrie

James Ramsay MacDonald

John Buchan, Lord Tweedsmuir

Archbishop Lord Lang

John Logie Baird

James Maxton

Sir Harry Lauder

Sir Alexander Fleming

Sir William Burrell

Edwin Muir

The Duchess of Atholl

Dr. John MacCormick

Admiral of the Fleet, Viscount Cunningham of Hyndehope

Mary Somerville

William Gallacher

Tom Johnston

David Maxwell Fyfe, Earl of Kilmuir

Jim Clark

Gavin Maxwell

Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding

Sir Archibald Sinclair, Viscount Thurso

Iain Macleod

Lord Reith

Lord Boyd Orr

John Grierson

Sir Compton Mackenzie

The Duke of Hamilton

Sir Basil Spence

John Mackintosh

Hugh MacDiarmid

Sir Frank Fraser Darling

Bernard Fergusson, Lord Ballantrae

Bill Shankly

James Cameron

Jock Stein

Manny, Lord Shinwell

Jennie, Baroness Lee

R. D. Lang

Colonel Sir David Stirling

Lord MacLeod of Fuinary

Willie Waddell

Jo, Lord Grimond

Sir Matt Busby

John Smith

Lord Lovat

Alec Douglas Home, Lord Home of the Hirsel

Norman MacCaig

George Mackay Brown

Sir Fitzroy Maclean, Bart.

Sorley MacLean

Sir Alec Cairncross

Lord Mackenzie-Stuart

Donald Dewar

Hamish Henderson

Eugenie Fraser

Rikki Fulton

Robin Cook

Jimmy Johnstone

Dame Muriel Spark

George Davie

Sir Bernard Crick

Sir Ludovic Kennedy

Bill McLaren

Sir James Black

Jimmy Reid

Edwin Morgan

John Bellany

Margo MacDonald

Alan Davie

William McIlvanney

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies

Ronnie Corbett

John Moffat

Tam Dalyell

Index

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

Magnus Linklater

From Sir Walter Scott in the nineteenth century to Tam Dalyell in the twenty-first, this collection of obituaries from The Times is a 200-year chronicle of great lives that have left their mark on the history and character of the Scottish nation. Politicians, artists, inventors, explorers, soldiers, academics, philosophers and troublemakers – these are men and women who have, in their different ways, broken the mould of their time, challenged its conventions and occasionally outraged them.

They cover a period that ranges from the age of the Enlightenment to the post devolution era – the building of empire, the industrial revolution, through two world wars and the economic chaos between them – culminating in the creation of a new Scottish Parliament and the legacy it has fashioned. Through all of these, Scots were often at the centre of great events, and their obituaries are, to an extent, a commentary on the times in which they lived.