Graham John Hills Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

A list of obituaries available online and accessed 3/8/2015:

After Sir Graham’s retirement, he was the driving force behind the establishment of the University of the Highlands and Islands. He moved to Inverness to be a full-time advisor to the nascent university. In 2004 he coauthored, with Robin Lingard, the book UHI: The Making of a University, a comprehensive account of the university’s creation.

With the financial challenges stabilized, Hills turned to expanding the university. Purchases were made in 1981 and 1987, respectively, of the Barony Church (restored in 1984 and converted into a graduation hall) and Marland House (a former British Telecom office block, which was renamed after Hills on his retirement). The “student village” on the eastern third of the campus was further expanded from the mid 1980s onwards.

Hills served as a professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Southampton for 18 years, until 1980, when he became principal at Strathclyde University, succeeding Samuel Curran who had held the post since 1959. There, his early foci were accommodating cuts to government funding by the University Grants Committee (UK), and dealing with the school’s other financial difficulties. He found alternative sources of income, restructured the university (in 1982) to reduce its nine schools to four, and introduced early retirement for faculty members. Hills also changed the academic year to the two-term semester structure.

Sir Graham Hills FRSE (9 April 1926 – 9 February 2014) was a physical chemist, principal of the University of Strathclyde, and a governor of the BBC. He was born in Southend-on-Sea, Essex and educated at Westcliff High School for Boys and Birkbeck College, London (BSc 1946, PhD 1950). He was knighted in 1988 for his services to education.