Mechanical engineer;
Born February 18, 1931; Died February 27, 2006.
PROFESSOR Norman Maccallum left behind an enviable legacy of professional achievement.
He attended Allan Glen's School in Glasgow, gained his BSc and his doctorate in mechanical engineering at Glasgow University. Most of his career was devoted to his alma mater, although he spent some time in Rolls-Royce in the 1960s as a performance engineer.
He began his academic career in 1957 as a lecturer and progressed to become a titular professor. He taught large numbers of practising engineers, undergraduate and postgraduate engineering students, mainly at Glasgow University, but also in Carleton in Canada and Cranfield in England. The most fortunate had him as a research supervisor.
His skills and knowledge spanned a wide range of disciplines within the gas turbine world, turbomachinery and exhaust systems, gas turbine performance in test beds, combustion and gas turbine transient performance.
He pioneered work on heat soakage during gas turbine transients, having started in the 1960s with a jet engine on a test bed and a stop-watch. Work on the subject gave him an international profile, through numerous international publications and several contributions to Rolls-Royce.
It was this work that underpinned his DSc from Glasgow University in 2001. As a teacher and examiner he was exacting in his technical standards, but kind and caring with his students.
Kindness and consideration were marks also of his nonprofessional life. He was a gracious man, quick to encourage, slow to condemn and unfailingly courteous.
His administrative and organisational skills were conscientiously deployed in the service of community and church, as well as university. He made a particularly notable contribution to the life of Trinity St Paul's Church, Cambuslang, across more than 40 years. At the zenith of his professional career, with its multiple demands, he agreed to become the congregation's session clerk, and for years carried out the duties of that office with absolute reliability and unruffled geniality.
His interests included the Glasgow City Mission, Kirkhill Cronies and the Glasgow Orpheus Club, where his fine bass voice enhanced many productions.
Busy as he was, his home and family remained always top among his priorities. For many years, and increasingly as time went on, he was afflicted with nasal haemorrhages which were unpredictable and inconvenient and at times humiliating, but he was never heard to complain; laughed off the nuisance and made light of the embarrassment; and the same indomitable courage in adversity was applied to the growing burdens of infirmity and immobility in these last years.
He leaves behind his wife, Mary, who with Norman made their home a by-word for generous hospitality, and three adult children.
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