MyGlasgow News

Professor Sir Graeme Davies, Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of Glasgow 1995-2003, died on 30 August 2022, after a short illness, at his home in Nottinghamshire.  He was 85 years old.

Born, raised and educated in New Zealand - obtaining his undergraduate and doctoral degrees, and holding a junior lectureship, at the University of Auckland - Graeme Davies went on to hold a dazzling array of leadership posts in UK higher education and became one of its most outstanding and influential leaders.   Having established himself from 1962 in Cambridge as a first-rate academic metallurgist and college fellow, Graeme became in 1976 Professor of Metallurgy at Sheffield University, where he also served as a Pro Vice Chancellor.  Subsequently Graeme was appointed Vice Chancellor of the University of Liverpool (1986), founding chief executive of three funding councils (from 1991) and – after his Glasgow Principalship – Vice Chancellor of the University of London (2003).

Alongside these demanding ‘day jobs’, Graeme chaired the Universities Superannuation Scheme (1996-2006), Scottish Education and Training (1996-2001), The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education (2001-10), The Higher Education Policy Institute (2004-15), the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (2001-7), the Glasgow Science Centre (2002-06, 2007-10), the Foundation for Liverpool Research (from 2012) and the New Zealand-UK Link Foundation (2011-17).  He also served as a council member or trustee of a large number of organisations.  In addition, Graeme was Master of the Company of Ironmongers 2005-6.  He was visiting or honorary professor in a number of overseas universities, held a variety of honorary fellowships and was awarded many honorary doctorates, including that of Glasgow in 2004.  Having received the Rosenheim Medal of the Institute of Metals and a Fellowship both of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Graeme was knighted in 1996.

After ‘retiring’ from the University of London in 2011, Graeme remained prominent and influential.   He served on the councils of four universities.  He carried out consultancy studies of higher education in places as varied as Northern Ireland and Myanmar.  Most notably, he played a leading role, as Chairman, President and Chancellor, of the British University Vietnam and chaired the Apollo Education Group there.  He also produced (with Geoff Garrett) Herding Cats, and Herding Professional Cats, humorously shrewd guides to academic leadership.

Against this background it might seem that the Principalship of Glasgow was for Graeme merely one significant post among many.  In fact, Glasgow had a special place in Graeme’s brilliant career.  He cherished Glasgow’s traditions, not least its medieval foundation, and took special pleasure in leading the University’s celebrations of its 550^th anniversary in 2001.  As demonstrated in his regular presentations around the institution, Graeme relished the huge sweep of the subjects that Glasgow encompassed, taking an intellectual engineer’s delight in the ‘system’ that held these heterogeneous disciplines together.  He deeply appreciated the University’s urban and regional importance, cultivating excellent relations with businesses, civic organisations and with neighbouring universities, notably with Strathclyde in the run-up to the launch of the Scottish Parliament in 1999.  Graeme also revelled in Glasgow as a major university in Scotland, with whose institutions old and new he developed strong links.  He fostered competitive collaboration with Edinburgh University, for example, and his ties to Scottish politics were so close that visitors to the newly acquired Davies house near Biggar could meet the then Secretary of State (and future First Minister) as they toured the premises!  Perhaps most importantly, Graeme enjoyed the University as an especially vibrant community, getting to know a huge number of its employees and students, jovially dispensing hospitality in close collaboration with his wife Florence (a Glasgow academic), and projecting his ebullient personality right round the University.

For at Glasgow, as elsewhere, Graeme was a larger than life personality, a leader of people and a builder of teams.  No one could doubt the seriousness of his approach to higher education, his devotion to the University, or the determination with which he pursued important institutional objectives.  But Graeme was never solemn, adopting an upbeat approach to even the most daunting of problems.  He regularly injected humour into both the admirably systematic sessions of his management group and into his magisterial chairing of Senate.  Likewise he had friendly relationships with the lay members of the University Court.  Graeme brought to his working week at Glasgow not only his natural buoyancy but also the pleasure he derived from his spare-time activities.  He was a determined golfer, a gifted gardener, a connoisseur of cars new and old, a lover of good food and drink, a dedicated photographer, and a birdwatcher extraordinaire.  He also drew great satisfaction from his family life - as husband, father and grandfather.  Insatiably curious, he was never bored and spread a sense of fun into even the most mundane situations.    

This galaxy of positive attributes allowed Graeme to accomplish great things for Glasgow.  Never one to denigrate the efforts of his predecessors, Graeme appreciated the many substantial strengths of the University he took over in 1995.  Nonetheless, under his leadership, the University (among other major achievements) made unprecedented strides in research income and assessment, diversified and expanded its student body, established a base at Crichton, merged with St Andrew’s College, and (as shown by Glasgow’s joining the prestigious consortium Universitas 21) deepened and broadened its international involvements.  When stringency occasionally intervened, Graeme approached it in a consensual way, drawing on friendly discussions with campus trades unions.  Above all he projected onto Glasgow his own sense of highly constructive ambition in the pursuit of stretching but attainable objectives.  Graeme was fearless, so how could the University be otherwise?  He lifted Glasgow’s sights and injected into it additional momentum.  Graeme transformed many institutions, but none of these processes of massive positive change brought him more satisfaction than Glasgow’s.

Highly active until the very end of his life, Graeme’s death is a great loss to his wife Svava (whom he married after Florence died in 2014), his children Michael and Helena and their families.  It is also a great loss to his legion of admirers, so many of whose careers he fostered.  And it is a major loss to the University of Glasgow, which meant so much to him.

 

Professor Sir Rick Trainor

University of Glasgow, (1979-2000), HonDUniv (2014)

Former University of Glasgow Vice-Principal (1996-2000)

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First published: 27 February 2023