PRESS TEAM SCOTLAND LTD
Stuart MacDonald
A WOMAN dubbed 'The Queen of Loch Lomond' left more than £1 million in her will to help conserve the area.
Dr Hannah Stirling MBE was a tireless campaigner and founder member of the Friends of Loch Lomond and much of her life revolved around preserving the loch.
She passed away at her home in Tarbet, Argyll, last November, a month after Cruise Loch Lomond's latest vessel was named in her honour following her 100th birthday.
In the 1970s she organised a 200,000-strong petition against a proposed major hydro-electric dam scheme on the north side of Ben Lomond.
The proposal was scrapped and she then continued to campaign for the protection of the area's natural beauty.
It has now emerged that Dr Stirling had an estate worth £2,238,376 at the time of her death.
She instructed that £200,000 and her £750,000 home in Tarbet should be passed to the Hannah Stirling Loch Lomond Charitable Trust.
Dr Stirling also left a gift of £50,000 to the Friends of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs campaign group and £10,000 to the Scottish Council for National Parks.
Donations of £80,000 and £50,000 were given to Strathclyde University and Glasgow University to help assist students "in difficult circumstances".
Further gifts of £20,000 each were given to Cancer Research and Erskine Hospital while UNICEF and the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund each received £10,000.
Her will, in which she described herself as a 'conservationist', showed she had a large stocks and shares portfolio worth more than £1 million.
Dr Stirling was born on September 27, 1914, in Glasgow's West End and her family moved to Helensburgh when she was seven.
She was the only day pupil at the former St Brides School, now Lomond School, and spent time bringing up her younger brother and sister after her mother's death when she was just 17.
She married her late husband Bill, who was later killed in a car accident, in 1945 and accompanied the fleet surgeon on a tour of America.
During this trip, at a function at the White House, she met Martin Luther King and General Dwight Eisenhower..
She and Bill moved to Loch Lomondside when they bought their home Auchendarroch in 1965 which is when her love affair with the loch became strong.
In March 1978, Dr Stirling had a letter published in The Glasgow Herald expressing strong opposition to a proposed hydro dam development, which she argued would spoil the landscapes of Loch Lomond.
This was met with massive public support and, seven months after her letter appeared in print, the Friends of Loch Lomond charity was formed.
Eventually the plans for the hydro dam development were scrapped and, under her stewardship, the Friends became a formidable force as an independent charity.
She had a string of awards bestowed on her, including receiving a Queen Mother's birthday award in 1983 and being given an honorary doctorate degree by Strathclyde University 10 years later.
That was quickly followed in 1994 with an MBE. And, in 1996, she was presented with the prestigious Europa Nostra Award for her outstanding conservation work, becoming the first Briton to receive this honour.
In an interview before her death, Dr Stirling said: "My fight for Loch Lomond started in 1978 and, although the nature of the problem has changed, the object remains the same - to restore to this most beautiful and historic of places the tranquillity which it deserves. The campaign goes on undiminished."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article