Iain Macleod Award

In 1974, the Iain Macleod Award Trust formed in honour of Moredun man The Rt Hon Iain Macleod (Mo 1927–1932). Iain sadly passed away on 20th July 1970, aged 56, only a month after becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer. He had an outstanding career and was one of the most brilliant politicians of the time, however, his future success appeared to go undetected at school. Mr HF Macdonald (Staff 1925–1962) (Deceased) wrote following his death: “He was, in fact, a typical Fettes boy, sound and reliable, with no outstanding achievement to his credit when he left. In his later years he was the first to admit that he was rather lazy. We meet him in the pages of The Fettesian only in lists of teams or in the accounts of school debates in which he took part, and although his contributions seem to us, as we read them today, to contain some sparks of his later brilliance, no one detected this at the time. The first indication that I, who had known and liked him as a boy, received that here was someone marked out for greatness, came from Sir Charles MacAndrew, the Deputy-Speaker, as I played golf with him at St. Andrews in, I suppose, 1950 or 1951, and he asked me what Old Fettesians were in the House of Commons. When I mentioned Iain Macleod, Sir Charles stopped in his tracks and said: ‘That is a very remarkable man’.”

A few years after Iain’s death, Old Fettesian friends including Lord Selwyn Lloyd (Gl 1918–1923) (Deceased), Speaker of the House of Commons 1971–1976 and Lord Fraser of Kilmorack (Mo 1929–1934) (Deceased), Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party 1964–1975, decided to raise funds in Iain’s memory to establish a prize for the benefit of students at Fettes. The Trustees decided that the prize should be for a travel award involving unusual and interesting projects. Current students apply annually via written application to the Trustees, following which the Trustees make their decision, always looking for a sense of fun and projects that relate to the applicant’s personal development or their preferred subject, hobby or interest.

Understandably, the 2020 recipient Thomas Kingan (PS-Ca 2013–2020) has been unable to take his planned trip to Germany yet. We got in touch with him to share his thoughts: “In an alternate Covid-free universe, this would instead be a report of my experiences on the trip made possible by the Iain Macleod award. Unsurprisingly, I did not travel to Germany to explore its reputation for superior Engineering and Design in the summer of 2020. Although there was a small window of international travel, very few of the fantastic places I wanted to visit were open, and I didn’t think it would have done the award justice.

“Having almost completed my first year studying Design Engineering at Imperial College London, my interest in the topic has only increased, and I can confidently say that a trip resembling my original submission will happen as soon as travel allows and I will be delighted to report back on my return. Having the trip ahead of me has been something to look forward to in this tricky year, and my thanks go to the Trustees for awarding the 2020 prize to me.”

Fingers crossed Thomas’s trip can take place soon and the trip the 2021 winners Leila F and Anna F are making from Inverness to Glasgow this summer goes well. We look forward to reporting on them both in next year’s Newsletter.