A SHIPBUILDING tycoon left a £30 million fortune to his family and charity.
Charles Connell headed one of Clydeside’s last great shipyards, Scotstoun-based Charles Connell and Company, which at its height employed 1,400 workers.
But as shipbuilding declined in the 1960s and 70s, he became a farmer, environmentalist and rural developer.
Mr Connell died aged 83 in November 2015 and his published will has revealed he had built up a £28,789,685 fortune. He was survived by his son Charles, who now runs the family businesses, and daughters Cara and Camilla. His wife Tugela died in 2009.
The document shows the bulk of his estate was made up of property, business interests and stocks and shares.
He ordered £20,000 be gifted to the Game Conservancy Scottish Research Trust and that the remainder of his estate be divided among his family.
The Connell business had been founded in 1861 initially to build sailing ships and remained in family hands until it became part of the government-owned Upper Clyde Shipbuilders in 1968.
That collapsed in 1971, leading to the famous “work-in” headed by shop stewards including Jimmy Reid and Jimmy Airlie. The Connell company name remained as part of Scotstoun Marine Ltd until 1980 when that, too, folded.
Mr Connell then focused on running two family estates with an environmental eye and creating rural developments. He moved into pig and poultry farming and fish-farming off Scotland’s west coast, as well as developing hydro and wind power sources.
He developed his Perthshire estate at Colquhalzie near Gleneagles, where he had spent much of his childhood, into one of multiple economic purpose, producing wheat and malting barley for breweries and local whisky distilleries.
He expanded that into pig and mass poultry production. Off Argyll, his salmon farm, employed 16 staff,. It was eventually bought over by a Norwegian company.
At his Highland estate, Garrogie in Inverness-shire, he built up a sporting and agricultural estate which provided over 60 jobs.
Despite opposition from some environmental groups, Mr Connell, backed by SSE, won approval from the Scottish Government for a 66-turbine wind farm at Stronelairg, near Fort Augustus.
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