Sir Gavin Harry Laird (14 March 1933 – 26 October 2017) was a Scottish trade unionist, who became General Secretary of the

Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union The Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union (AEEU) was a British trade union. It merged with the MSF to form Amicus in 2001. History The union was founded in 1992, when the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU) finally achieved a merger w ...

(AEEU) and a Member of the Court of the

Bank of England The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and still one of the bankers for the Government of ...

. Growing up in Clydebank he attended a local high school then began working for Singer. He became an

Amalgamated Engineering Union The Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU) was a major United Kingdom, British trade union. It merged with the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union to form the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union in 1992. History ...

(AEU) shop steward there, then convenor. Three years after taking up a full-time position with the union, he was elected to the AEU executive and later elected AEU general secretary, remaining in that position after the merger which created the AEEU. He addressed the Confederation of British Industry annual conference in 1986 – an unusual move for a trade unionist at the time. He appeared as a castaway on the BBC Radio programme '' Desert Island Discs'' on 25 October 1992, received an Honorary Doctorate from

Heriot-Watt University Heriot-Watt University ( gd, Oilthigh Heriot-Watt) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was established in 1821 as the School of Arts of Edinburgh, the world's first mechanics' institute, and subsequently granted univ ...

in 1994, was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) under Margaret Thatcher's government and knighted in 1995 at the behest of Tony Blair. He retired from the AEEU in 1995 and died in October 2017 at the age of 84 after a long illness.Sir Gavin Laird C.B.E. 1933-2017
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References

1933 births 2017 deaths Commanders of the Order of the British Empire General Secretaries of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union General Secretaries of the Amalgamated Engineering Union Knights Bachelor People from Clydebank {{Scotland-bio-stub