Sir Donald McCallum

SIR Donald McCallum, who has died aged 89, was a trained scientist and electrical engineer who became one of the leading businessmen in Scotland for more than two decades.

He spent 40 years in Edinburgh with the Ferranti (Scotland) defence systems company, half of those as general manager and presided over Scotland’s most important science and engineering company and its 8000 employees. They nicknamed him Supermac and many believe his 1987 retirement was a major factor in Ferranti’s downfall and eventual bankruptcy six years later.

In the early 1990s, he served as the often-outspoken president of the Scottish Council for Development and Industry (SCDI), which links companies, local authorities, banks, unions and others to push Scotland’s industrial and economic development.

In that role, he campaigned on behalf of Scottish exports, for lower taxes on Scotch whisky, for recognition as universities for all Scottish degree-awarding institutions, and against Whitehall cuts in “enterprise education” in schools. He became a freeman of the City of London in 1984 and the same year was named a deputy lieutenant of Edinburgh, serving for 10 years.

He also served as chairman of what was then called the Scottish Committee of the UK-wide Universities Funding Council, now the Scottish Funding Council, and of a body known as STEAC – the Scottish Tertiary Education Advisory Council – created by the Scottish Office.

His latter task was to consult the Scottish universities on whether to look south for inspiration, or do it their own way. That job led to his knighthood in 1988 (he had been made CBE in 1976 for his service to Scottish industry).

Having joined the Admiralty during the war, he worked on communications for the Royal Navy aircraft carriers HMS Indefatigable and HMS Implacable, designing a high-frequency transmitter for their homing beacons.

In early June 1944, he was given a handbook and a top-security pass and asked to sort out serious problems with the TBS (Talk Between Ships) radio equipment on allied vessels anchored in the Solent. When he boarded the converted warship HMS Bulolo, he was taken aback to see three familiar figures disembark: Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, South African Prime Minister (and Field Marshal) Jan Smuts and Minister of Labour Ernest Bevin.

The young McCallum tuned the ship’s communications, then was told to get off because they were sailing. The following morning, D-Day, he realised the Bulolo was headed for Gold Beach in Normandy as Field Marshal Montgomery’s HQ ship.

A few days later, he and his team got a message from the Admiralty congratulating them on sorting out the invasion force’s communications in the nick of time. “I just read the handbook!” he replied in typical style.

In 1947, he was hired in Edinburgh. The firm had set up in Edinburgh during the war to make gyroscopic gun sights for Allied fighter planes in the run-up to D-day. His first project was to design a “supersonic airspeed indicator”, one of many aircraft innovations he would be involved in and whose influence would later be apparent in warplanes including the Lightning, Buccaneer, Harrier and Tornado, as well as during the flight trials of Concorde. Sir Donald, jointly with colleagues since he preferred to work as a team, held numerous patents relating to flight control and navigation systems. Ferranti also produced the first commercial British computer, the Ferranti Mk 1.

In 1982, when he had already been Ferranti Scotland’s general manager for 14 years, Sir Donald oversaw the development of the Seaspray radar system for Skua missiles on board British Lynx helicopters. Although it had barely been through its trials and had not formally been accepted into service, the system proved extremely effective, as did the Ferranti Laser Target Marker to “light up” targets for laser-guided bombs.

Donald Murdo McCallum was born in Edinburgh in 1922 to Roderick “Roddy” McCallum, who was headmaster of Bathgate Academy and a well-known Brethren preacher, and his wife Lillian. He went to George Watson’s College before graduating from Edinburgh University in 1942 with a first-class BsC (Hons) in electrical engineering. He married Barbara Black in 1949 and they had a child, Carolyn, in 1950.

As general manager of Ferranti Scotland, Sir Donald sought to broaden its scope beyond defence contracts and more into the civilian field. One of his successes was in the oil industry, where Ferranti Offshore grew, from the mid-1970s, to become a significant sector for the company.

He stepped down as general manager in 1985 but remained as chairman for a further two years. Just before he formally retired in 1987, he strongly warned against the company’s takeover of the US firm International Signal and Control (ISC).

He had long warned his staff not to take on any contract that could potentially bankrupt the company. ISC looked highly profitable but its business soon turned out to be based on illegal arms sales and its lack of cash flow led to Ferranti’s bankruptcy in 1993.

At that time, the management of Ferranti’s laser division bought out the division, renamed it Laser Ecosse and appointed Sir Donald as chairman.

Having spent most of his career in Edinburgh – firstly in Craiglockhart, then Colinton and finally Heriot Row, Sir Donald retired to Pudsey, near Leeds, where he was highly active in the local Baptist Church. Moving to Ulverston in Cumbria in 2007 to marry his third wife, he again was a much-loved figure in Tottlebank Baptist Church. At the age of 78, he travelled to Genoa during the G8 summit of 2001 to join the Drop the Debt campaign on behalf of the poorest countries.

Sir Donald had honorary degrees from several universities and was a fellow of numerous bodies including the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Electrical Engineers, the Scottish Vocational Educational Council and Paisley College of Technology.

After Barbara died in 1971, Sir Donald married Margaret Illingworth, who passed away in 1997. He married his third wife Jill, from Essex, in 2007. His only child Carolyn died in 2007.

He is survived by his third wife Jill (née Maxwell), son-in-law Dr Stephen Green, grandchildren Andrew and Barnabas, great grandchildren Noah and Esther, and several stepchildren and step-grandchildren. Sir Donald’s sister Cathy predeceased him.

He will be buried tomorrow at Morningside Baptist Church, Edinburgh.