R. H. W. Bruce

Shetlopedia - The Shetland Encyclopaedia

R. H. W. Bruce, or Robert Hunter Wingate Bruce was born on October 11th 1907 and died on August 17th 1983, He resided at Sandlodge, Sandwick.

He was born Robert Bruce Wingate, son of John Bruce Wingate, and grandson of Elizabeth Helen Bruce of Sumburgh, who married the Rev. T.D. Wingate. John Bruce Wingate inherited the Sumburgh and Lunna estates in 1939 on the death of his uncle, Robert Hunter Bruce, and changed his name to John Bruce: at the same time Robert Bruce Wingate changed his name to Robert Hunter Wingate Bruce.

He married in 1935 Valmai Muriel Chamberlain, of Hailsworth, Gloucestershire.

Educated at Rugby and Oxford, he joined the L.M.S. Railway in 1930. He held various positions with the railway until 1941, when he was loaned to the Ministry of Economic Warfare, on whose behalf he spent a month in Washington in 1942. In 1943 he was recalled to the railway, and appointed manager of a line in Northern Ireland, with a payroll of about 2000. He became railway liaison officer with the British and American armed forces.

In May, 1946, he resigned to run of the Sumburgh and Lunna estates, which he inherited from his father. He lived in Shetland from 1946 to 1952, and for part of that period was a county councillor and a member of the Highlands and Islands Panel.

He was Lord Lieutenant for Shetland from 1953 to 1982.

In 1952 he accepted a five-year appointment as principal representative in Southern Africa of the Rio Tinto Compny. During his chairmanship, the companies carried out a large programme of mining exploration in Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia and South Africa. Bruce also served as a director of three large copper mining companies in Northern Rhodesia, and he was a director of the Merchant Bank of Central Africa.

He returned to Shetland in late 1957, and was adopted as Tory candidate for Orkney and Shetland in March 1958. He was defeated in the subsequent general election.

R.H.W. Bruce played an active part in the Shetland Council of Social Service, as part of a movement to revitalise Shetland economically.

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