Allan Macartney

Dr William John Allan Macartney (17 February 1941, Accra, Gold Coast, now Ghana – 25 August 1998, Aberdeen) was a Scottish National Party (SNP) MEP for the North East Scotland constituency between the 1994 European Parliament election and his sudden death from a heart attack in 1998.

Born in Africa, the son of a Church of Scotland minister, his family soon returned to Scotland and he was schooled in Elgin, Moray. He studied at the universities of Tübingen and Marburg in Germany, and then at the universities of Edinburgh (graduating in Economic Science in 1962) and Glasgow.

Upon completing his studies he returned to Africa as a voluntary secondary schoolteacher in eastern Nigeria. He then worked as a lecturer in government and administration at the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland for eight years.

Upon returning to Scotland he continued his academic career, tutoring for the Open University, founding the Unit for the Study of Government in Scotland at the University of Edinburgh, and becoming Rector of the University of Aberdeen.

He became the SNP deputy leader in 1992. He was a founder of the Federation of Student Nationalists, and the founder and Provost of the Scottish Self-Government College.

At the North East Scotland by-election, 1998, caused by Allan Macartney's death, Ian Hudghton held the seat for the SNP with a substantially increased majority.

In 2006, an internship was launched by the SNP named after Dr. Macartney. Its aims are to encourage young people to take an interest in European and Scottish Politics. Applicants do not have to be members of the SNP. (Source)