Real lives: Businessman and proud Scot leaves Gaelic legacy

Published on Monday 27 December 2010 12:14

BUSINESSMAN, banker and entrepreneur, Sir Iain Noble, 3rd Baronet of Ardkinglas and Eilean Iarmain, has died at home aged 75 on Christmas Day.

Sir Iain co-founded, with Angus Grossart, the merchant bank Noble Grossart which later became the Noble Group. He was also responsible for the introduction of Gaelic-language road signs in Scotland and was the first man to be issued with a Gaelic cheque book.

He was born on 8 September 1935 in Berlin, the son of a British diplomat, and studied at Eton and Oxford.

From 1954 until 1956, he carried out national service and remained in the army as a lieutenant in the Intelligence Corps, and served in the Territorial Army in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders for three years afterwards.

After leaving Oxford he became an insurance broker in London before returning to Scotland to work for the Scottish Council for Development & Industry.

He decided Scotland needed its own merchant bank. He explained: "I was concerned at the way industry was being bought up by people in London. The big commercial companies were lunching with merchant banks in the City."

He met Angus Grossart, a young solicitor specialising in tax cases, and together they formed Noble Grossart in 1969. The bank flourished, partly thanks to the discovery of North Sea oil. Sir Iain and his colleagues formed Pict Petroleum, and later Seaforth Maritime.

The bank was bought out in 1972, and Sir Iain used the proceeds to buy the 25,000 acre Eilean Iarmain estate on Skye as well as the Eilean Iarmain Hotel, where Gaelic is the first spoken language.

The following year, Sir Iain founded the Gaelic college, Sabhal Mor Ostaig, in Sleat on Skye.

In 1976, he founded Praban na Linne, the Gaelic whisky company which produces the award-winning malt Poit Dhubh and the blends Te Bheag and MacNaMara.

He controversially announced himself to be a "racialist" at a conference of the Scottish Countryside Alliance in Edinburgh, discouraging English from settling on Skye, and said he would be glad to see the decline of tourism there.

In 1982, he was named Scotsman of the Year by the Knights Templar, and in 2000 became Keeper of the Quaich.

Sir Iain became a trustee of the National Museums of Scotland and president of the Saltire Society, and after his retirement he was chairman and chief executive of Sir Iain Noble & Partners.

Ben Thomson, the recently-retired chairman of the Noble Group, said: "He was always looking to see how he could help develop a sector or develop something new based in Scotland."

The champion of Gaelic culture died peacefully at home on the Isle of Ornsay, Skye, and is survived by his wife, Lady Lucilla.