Sir Ian Gourlay had a distinguished career in the Royal Marines. He was born on 13 November 1920 and died on 17 July 2013, aged 92. During World War II, he took part in the landings in North Africa and fought in the Adriatic, in Italy and in Yugoslavia. He was appointed Commandant-General from 1971 to 1975, during which years he organised the change in training from jungle and desert warfare to the Arctic, in order to defend NATO's northern flank against possible Soviet aggression. He retired in 1975 from the Royal Marines, when he became Director General of the United World Colleges, at the request of Lord Mountbatten. During his fifteen years in office, this educational foundation for the world-wide development of international understanding expanded considerably. On its website on 30 September 2013, UWC's Executive Director recorded that the movement was transformed by Sir Ian, who proved to be an inspiration to very many people.
One of his opposite numbers in the United World Colleges was Professor T.H.B. (Tom) Symons, C.C., F.R.S.C., founding president of Trent University in Canada. Thus it was that Sir Ian agreed in 1992 to chair ARTAF, the Archival Research Task Force of the Meta Incognita project in Canada, set up in 1990. ARTAF's purpose was to carry out research in Britain on the three voyages of Sir Martin Frobisher, the Elizabethan sea dog, of 1576, 1577 and 1578. Initially searching for a northwest passage, the venture took to mining on what later became known as Baffin Island. A team of scholars was assembled, which met regularly for some 40 meetings at the Royal Geographical Society, under Sir Ian's effective and warm-hearted chairmanship. The late Professor David Quinn, Hon. F.B.A. was one of its members, as was the late Dr Helen Wallis, F.S.A. of the British Museum, likewise Mrs Kirsten Seaver, historian of the Norse Greenland colonies, the late Surgeon Vice Admiral Sir James Watt, as well as James McDermott, Frobisher's biographer, Bernard Allaire, Robert Baldwin, Lieut. Cdr David Waters, R.N., Dr William Sherman, Dr Ian Friel (author of The good ship), and Ann Savours, the present writer. The results of our labours and of those mainly based in Canada, Professor Donald Hogarth, Professor Richard Ruggles and Professor Symons, were published in two substantial volumes by the Canadian Museum of Civilisation in 1999, edited by Professor Symons, under the title Meta incognita: a discourse of discovery, Martin Frobisher's Arctic expeditions, 1576–1578. It has a foreword by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, who took a keen interest in the Meta incognita project from the outset.
Sir Ian Gourlay was the son of Brigadier K.I. Gourlay, D.S.O., M.C., Royal Engineers. His family had owned the engineering firm which built the main machinery and boilers for S.Y. Discovery in Dundee. From this Scottish port (where she is now berthed) Discovery departed to carry the National Antarctic Expedition 1901–1904, commanded by Captain R.F. Scott, to the Ross Sea.
Sir Ian's wife, Natasha Zinoviev, daughter of Princess Elizabeta Galitzine, whom he married in 1948, survives him.
