Dr Robert William Pringle, OBE, co-founder and chief executive of Nuclear Enterprises: born on May 2, 1920; died on June 10, aged 76
ROBERT PRINGLE was the kind of scientist development agencies dream of: he applied his intellectual gifts to the commercial world, and made a profit from his own pioneeering work in the world of medical technology. As a tax exile and passionate rugby fan, he was the first organiser of the Monte Carlo Sevens.
Born in Edinburgh and educated at George Heriot's School, Robert William Pringle went to Edinburgh University as the Vans Dunlop scholar in natural philosophy. He took his doctorate and was appointed a lecturer in 1945, developing an interest in applied nuclear physics and geophysics.
In 1947 he went to Manitoba University as associate professor of physics, becoming full professor in 1953. In Canada he formed the associations on which his commercial fortune was based. With two Canadian colleagues he returned to Edinburgh and set up Nuclear Enterprises; he was chairman and managing director.
The company operated in the field of nucleonic instrumentation and medical diagnostics. Its electronic body scanner was widely used, and the company twice won the Queen's Award to Industry. EMI, which had financed the company's expansion with a 20% equity stake, took it over in 1976, believing its non-invasive ultrasonic scanners would complement the cat-scanners it had already developed.
However, this was not a successful speculation and Thorn EMI, as the company became in 1979, decided to get out of nuclear instrumentation. In 1987 Northern Enterprises was the subject of a management buyout. By now, as NE Technology, it was headquartered in Beenham, Berkshire, and market shifts had taken it in new directions. The residual Edinburgh manufacturing plant was finally closed in 1995 after NE had been taken over by the French Compagnie de Gobin.
Though he moved to Monaco for tax reasons, Dr Pringle was a frequent visitor to Scotland. His friends noted that his trips often coincided with rugby games. He had been a gifted hooker in his young days, representing Edinburgh and Edinburgh-Glasgow. He was a Scottish trialist, just missing a cap.
He was a delightful and convivial man and when he went to Monaco, many of his friends tasted his hospitality there. He first organised the sevens in 1987.
After selling the company he became active in public life, andserved on several science research councils, the Scottish Council of the CBI, and Edinburgh University Court and as a trustee of various charities, including the Scottish Trust for the Physically Disabled. He was an honorary advisesr to the National Museum of Antiquities for Scotland.
A fellow of the Royal Societies of Edinburgh and Canada, he was a keen golfer and collector of books, with a wide range of interests. In 1986 he published, with James Douglas, a volume on twentieth-century Scottish banknotes, of which there used to be a great variety in the days before the amalgamations that reduced the number of banks.
He is survived by his wife Carol, whom he married in 1948, and by three sons and a daughter. His younger brother Dr Derek Pringle, who became chief physicist and later assistant managing director of Nuclear Enterprises, died last year.
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