Former Bank of Scotland Governor Sir Bruce Pattullo was born on January 2, 1938, died aged 84 on September 16, 2022.

David Bruce Pattullo was born in Edinburgh, the son of lawyer Colin Pattullo and his wife Elizabeth, née Bruce. Bruce and his sister were evacuated to their grandmother’s farm in Fife for the early war years. Their father, in the army, was wounded at El Alamein, awarded the MC and wounded again at Anzio, dying in Naples in 1944 – and it was five-year-old Bruce who answered the door to receive the telegram informing the family of his death.

After Rugby, Bruce was commissioned into the Royal Scots for national service and seconded to the Queen’s Own Nigeria Rgt. Observing a fractious state created from Hausa, Ibo and Yoruba tribal lands, he drew a lesson for his later career: “I had a lovely time there… but I was aware that there is no such thing as Nigeria, and therefore common sense says, you don’t actually lend money to it.”

After the army, he studied at Hertford College, Oxford, before joining Bank of Scotland in 1961. Three years later he won the top prize of the Institute of Bankers in Scotland – of which he would serve as president from 1990 to 1992.

As the Bank of Scotland’s 21st Governor from 1991-98, Bruce was involved in two unaccustomed public rows. The first, in 1996, involved his stormy resignation from the board of the insurer Standard Life after it announced a plan to sell its 30 per cent stake in Bank of Scotland – effectively making the bank a takeover target. The following year, he ventured into Scotland’s devolution debate, speaking out against tax-raising powers for a Scottish parliament and earning a rebuke from Labour’s deputy prime minister John Prescott.

A moderniser who took the bank in new directions, he was also a believer in its traditional role as a beacon of probity and provider of service. After announcing record profits for his final year as Governor, Bruce said simply: “It’s nice to be able to hand it over in good order.”

Pattullo enjoyed tennis and, in retirement, ‘a modest little house’ in Spain. He was appointed CBE in 1989 and knighted in 1995. He married, in 1962, Fiona Nicholson, who survives him with their daughter and three sons.

Adapted from The Telegraph