Andrew Kerr

Born: January 17, 1940

Died: September 19, 2024

Andrew Kerr, who has died aged 84, was a solicitor and naval historian who became a leading figure in the fight to conserve the historic centre of Edinburgh. He was also much in demand as a consultant and speaker on Scottish naval history, particularly the British Grand Fleet’s base at Scapa Flow in Orkney.

The son of solicitor William Mark Kerr and teacher Katharine Stevenson, he was educated at Edinburgh Academy. After school he read natural sciences and English law at Cambridge, graduating with a BA degree. He then worked for a year from 1961 with British Petroleum in London but Scotland beckoned and after studying Scots Law at Edinburgh, he gained an LLB qualification.

He served his legal apprenticeship between 1964 to 1967 with Davidson and Syme which later became Dundas and Wilson. He was then employed by the family firm Bell and Scott, now Anderson Strathern; he was appointed partner in 1969 and senior partner from 1987 to 1996. In the early seventies he helped set up the Edinburgh Solicitors Property Centre which to this day assists law firms market their clients’ residential properties.

Andrew was well respected for his intelligence, attention to detail, gentle humour and his calm, gentlemanly manner. He was a key player in the early conservation movement in Edinburgh.

In 1970 he presented a paper at the conference The Conservation of Georgian Edinburgh which was subsequently published by University of Edinburgh Press. In the paper he warned that residents should keep an eye on change of use applications and on the issue of parking. He wrote, whatever the challenges “I am convinced however that the New Town will always be worth living in and caring for.”

In 1972 he was a founder of the New Town Conservation Committee. As its vice-chairman he was part of the resistance against the trend towards neo-brutalist architecture helping to prevent the centre of Edinburgh and its heritage from being trashed by the building of an inner city motorway.

From 2008 to 2013 he was a director of the Edinburgh Old Town Renewal Trust which aimed to halt the decline and neglect in the area and to make it attractive for businesses and residents alike – and to ensure it was adequately policed.

When the Old and New Towns were combined into a single Unesco World Heritage site in 1995, its conservation bodies merged into Edinburgh World Heritage and Andrew became a trustee and director from 1999 until his resignation in 2010.

But it was not just urban conservation that Andrew found pathways through a myriad of legislation and regulations. He opened up avenues for creative and artistic endeavours through the Edinburgh Festival Society. Still a young lawyer in 1969 he formed the society into a charitable company providing a solid basis for the festival to grow through its egalitarian open access policy.

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He went on to play roles in the governance of mainstream arts bodies, for example as a member of the Council of the Edinburgh International Festival (1978-82) and the Scottish Arts Council as chairman of the important drama committee (88-91, 1993-94) which decided on applications for funding from performing companies and individuals.

Andrew had a long-standing interest in the navy. In 1961 until 1976 he was in the Royal Naval Reserve. His father always insisted his was not a naval family, nevertheless Andrew’s twin sister Mary also joined the Reserve and his younger brother Robin served as a regular officer in the Royal Navy.

In 1967 Andrew completed two weeks of training in Malta and subsequently was on board a frigate just as the Six Day Arab War broke out between Israel and a coalition of the Arab states of Egypt, Jordan and Syria (from the outset the United States had been seeking a ceasefire in order to ensure that the Soviet Union did not exploit the situation.)

In the same year Andrew married Susanna Robertson. She had been reading history at Edinburgh University and they met in the chorus of the university’s Savoy Theatre Group’s performances of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore. They married in St Mary’s church in Twickenham in London and went onto have a daughter Elizabeth, now a civil servant.

Whilst employed with Bell and Scott, Andrew was appointed as law agent to the Commissioners of the Northern Lighthouse Board. This was a position he relished because, as well as grappling with the legalities of houses and gardens provided for the keepers on land with occupancy but not ownership rights, he was able to visit lighthouses and their properties on their coastal locations.

In his retirement his interest in naval affairs led to his involvement as a consultant for the BBC documentary Scotland’s War at Sea. It won the Royal Television Award for the best Scottish history programme of 2016. That year he was also a member of the Scottish Government’s Battle of Jutland Commemoration Working Group which aimed to have the largest naval battle between the Royal Navy Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet in World War One remembered.

(Image: Andrew Kerr worked for many years on the conservation of Edinburgh)

Andrew was in demand by local groups to give talks about the time when the British Grand Fleet of around 200 ships was based at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys at the beginning of World War One. The battle cruisers had moved to Rosyth on the Forth Estuary in December 1914 but it took until April 1918 before the estuary was considered safe enough for the rest of the Fleet to join them. Andrew was able to tell the tale in detail complete with black and white photographs and other illustrations.

The Royal Navy had requisitioned around 3,000 trawlers and drifters with their crews. 675 of which were sunk by enemy action while fishing or flying the colours of the Royal Naval Reserve, many during the period of unrestricted submarine warfare. Andrew had wanted the impact of this action on local communities to be acknowledged and remembered.

The observance of the Christian faith was important to Andrew and in spite of a very busy professional life he was a regular attender at the Scottish Episcopalian Church of Old St Paul’s in the Old Town of Edinburgh.

He is survived by his wife Susanna, daughter Elizabeth and grandchildren Malcolm and David. Also his twin sister Mary and younger brother Robin.

KAY SMITH

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