A sports enthusiast, he quit as leader in 1983 – but not as a councillor – to become vice-chairman of the 1986 Commonwealth Games organising committee.
The political context made this role controversial, as, indeed, were the Games themselves. There were attempts to have the English team removed because of a pending rugby tour of apartheid South Africa. Waugh said publicly that protests were to be expected but he was “optimistic” that all countries would compete.
Then, in October 1986, Waugh clashed with Robert Maxwell, the Mirror Group boss and Games chairman. He resigned after receiving an abusive letter from Maxwell, whom he accused of posing as the saviour of the troubled Games, gaining huge personal publicity without contributing enough to the cause. “It was an attempt at character assassination,” Waugh explained. “At the end of the day, there is no way I could work with Mr Maxwell or would wish to.”
Cornelius Waugh was born in Edinburgh in 1937 to Cornelius and Rose and educated at Leith Academy, before training as a civil engineer. He later owned and ran his own industrial cleaning firm, C Waugh of Leith, and entered politics at the age of 31, having been selected as the Progressive (a term used by Conservatives in local government) candidate for the South Leith ward in May 1969.
Although broadly Conservative, Waugh was not an ideologue when it came to politics. Above all, he was a local man with detailed knowledge of local affairs, and wanted the best for his city, regardless of right or left. Within a few years of joining Edinburgh Corporation, he was chosen to serve on its housing committee, a policy area with which he was associated, often controversially, for the next decade.
In 1975, Scottish local government endured a major reorganisation. Two overlapping authorities, Lothian Regional Council and Edinburgh District Council, now governed Edinburgh. Waugh served on both, becoming Tory group leader for the district in 1976.
Although he was adept at forging cross-party alliances, he was not afraid of backing tough decisions.
He supported the leasing of Edinburgh’s opera house site for a hotel development in 1977, insisting that it did not prevent the incorporation of a theatre complex, while in 1978 a motion proposed by Waugh was passed to set up an all-party inquiry into allegations of irregularities in expenses paid to athletes at the Edinburgh-Glenlivet Highland Games.
Waugh was by then chairman of the housing committees on both the district council and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. He provoked controversy by complaining that government funding favoured Glasgow over the capital. “Parts of the city centre … could fall apart soon unless money is spent on them,” he warned. “Edinburgh earns a lot from tourism. Glasgow attracts hardly a penny.”
In 1982 – during a bitter
period of cost-cutting under Margaret Thatcher’s first government – Waugh came under fire from an alliance of Church of Scotland ministers and a Roman Catholic priest, who accused the council of systematically emptying Edinburgh’s West Pilton estate in order to demolish hundreds of council houses.
Waugh denied the plan was to demolish West Pilton, insisting that it was just one possibility, the other being “homesteading” – whereby people were given houses to repair for themselves. Whatever decision was taken, he added, there was no money for rehabilitation.
Waugh’s decision to stand down as Tory group leader in 1983 shocked colleagues, who admired his cunning habit of proposing an idea at group meetings and then adding, before anyone could contradict him, “several colleagues agree with me”. In addition to his Commonwealth Games duties, Waugh served as chairman of the Waverley Market Management Committee, escorting the Queen around the shopping centre in July 1985 after its formal opening.
After retiring from local government just prior to the reorganisation of 1995, Waugh devoted himself to sporting interests. He was a former member of the Leith Academicals rugby club, serving as its president and match secretary; president of Leith Cricket Club; and was also involved with the Leith Rules Golf Society.
A diminutive man with a great sense of humour, “Corny” remained active in community affairs right up until his death. In January this year, he lambasted Forth Ports’ plan to rename the Port of Leith “Edinburgh Harbour”. “This is so illogical,” he wrote, “that its proponents probably think it’s a stroke of genius.”
Waugh was brother to Rose, Charlotte and the late Hugh and Michael. He never married but lived with his elder sister, Rose, in Claremont Park, where he was regularly seen walking his dog on the nearby Leith Links.
Born October 20, 1937;
Died September 24, 2009.
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