Graeme Elder Gilchrist (1955)

Graeme, who died on December 13th, 2024, aged 90 was born in London and apart from a brief evacuation to Scotland during the Blitz, boarding school in Dorset, National Service in Germany and university at Cambridge, he spent his whole life in London.

In 1948 he went to Sherborne School in Dorset and became Head Boy. He formed a lifelong attachment to the school and was later a Governor and helped to establish the Sherborne Foundation.

After National Service in postwar Germany, he went up to Queens’ College to read economics. His father had telephoned an old Shirburnian, Michael McCrum, who was then a fellow of Corpus Christi, to see if he could facilitate Graeme’s access to his college - autres temps autres moeurs! McCrum did not think Graeme was ‘university material’, but Corpus Christi’s loss became Queens’ gain. Graeme got a 2.1 and was Vice-Captain of rowing. He was very proud of having rowed at Henley and returned to Queens’ to coach the new cohort for a number of years.

He then started a career in the City. After a start at Barings Bank where he was told “You have to realise dear boy that you are going nowhere if your name isn’t Baring”, he joined The Union Discount Bank of London, became Managing Director, and was closely involved in the ‘Big Bang’ of 1986 which revolutionised the way the City operated.

Alongside his life in the City, Graeme was a member of The Honourable Artillery Company and rose to become its Commanding Officer and thereafter Regimental Colonel He was later appointed an Honorary Colonel Commandant of the Royal Artillery. He was Master Gunner within The Tower, served on the HAC Court of Assistants (established in 1616 to manage the civil and financial affairs of the Company) and was a lowly pikeman in The Company of Pikemen & Musketeers, a ceremonial unit of the HAC which is formed of HAC veterans tasked with providing a bodyguard and escort for the Lord Mayor of London when on official business. As a natural crossover from his life in the city, he also served as a financial advisor to the Royal Artillery Benevolent Fund, the HAC Benevolent Fund, as a Commissioner of The Royal Hospital Chelsea, The Royal Hospital for Neurodisability, and The Chindits Old Comrades Association (now The Chindit Society) And many more.

He had many passions - Churchill, cricket, golf, history, Arsenal, Trollope, Eric Morecambe, Glyndebourne, tennis, classical music and Tommy Cooper.

Graeme married Susie in 1981. They had a son, Tom, and he inherited a stepson, Barney. He had two grandsons.