Allan Macartney

Who was Allan Macartney?

Dr William John Allan Macartney was a Scottish National Party MEP for the North East Scotland constituency between the 1994 European Parliament election and his sudden death from a heart attack in 1998.

Born in Africa, the son of a Church of Scotland minister, his family soon returned to Scotland and he was schooled in Elgin, Moray. He studied at the universities of Tübingen and Marburg in Germany, and then at the universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Upon completing his studies he returned to Africa as a voluntary secondary schoolteacher in eastern Nigeria. He then worked as a lecturer in government and administration at the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland for eight years.

Upon returning to Scotland he continued his academic career, tutoring for the Open University, founding the Unit for the Study of Government in Scotland at the University of Edinburgh, and becoming Rector of the University of Aberdeen.

He became the SNP deputy leader in 1992. He was a founder of the Federation of Student Nationalists, and the founder and Provost of the Scottish Self-Government College.