.
Born 20 March 1915. Died 16 October 1996.
Bill MacLellan helped keep Scottish culture and Scottish nationalism
alight in the dark days after the war. His father, a 'weel kent' face as
a baillie on the old Glasgow Corporation had established a printing business
that Bill and his brother John inherited (John later left to live in Canada).
In the mid forties Bill turned it into a publishing house specialising in
Scottish cultural affairs. As a conscientious objector during the war he
sat up nights at the tall corner tower at 240 Hope Street, his own Geddesian
'Outlook Tower', wearing his ARP(Air Raid Precaution) tin hat and gas mask
watching for German bombers.
His father had printed various pamphlets in the twenties for the Scottish
Home Rule Association run by Ramsay McDonald and later RE Muirhead. In the
fifties, Bill carried on similarly by printing for the Scottish Covenant
Association organised by 'King' John MacCormack. Many a Scottish National
Party brochure was printed at 240 Hope Street, burning the midnight oil
to meet an election deadline. He was also involved with the Social Credit
movement, having known the founder CH Douglas.
Bill was ubiquitous and knew everyone in the post war Scottish arts and
literature scene. He helped start up the Celtic Ballet club with Margaret
Morris, and in Glasgow's Renfrew Street, set up the 'The Howff', a germinal
arts centre located in a condemned tenement. The guest of honour at the
opening was Joan Littlewood who had travelled from London for the occasion.
Forced to close his Hope Street premises, Bill moved his equipment, stock
and manuscripts first to a basement in Garnethill's Buccleuch Street, then
a top floor flat in Hill Street, each time with loss, as his business fortunes
declined. On still evenings the skirl of his bagpipes could be heard, sometimes
mingling in an otherworldly rhapsody with the practice scales and arias
of the opera singers two floors below, not to mention the adjoining Polish
folk song accompanied by piano and trumpet....
His most well known books were The Silver Bough series on Scottish folklore
and mysticism by F. Marian McNeill; Celtic Art, the ground breaking study
by George Bain; The Bruce by Barbour; The Dewar Manuscripts; In Memoriam
- James Joyce by Hugh MacDiarmid. He also produced many quarterly magazines
such as Poetry Scotland, edited by Maurice Lindsay; Scottish Art and Letters
edited by Hugh MacDiarmid and J D Fegusson; The Lion Rampant (the crofters
magazine) by Andrew MacAindrish, close friend of Scottish Patriot founder
Wendy Wood, another of Bill's associates; Con Brio a music magazine; The
Scottish Journal, a political magazine of the fifties advocating various
forms of Scottish self government, and a hill walking magazine reflecting
his involvement in the Scottish Junior Mountaineering Club. He produced
a later series of paperback titles, early examples of offset litho printing,
under the Embryo imprint, and enthusiastically planned editions in microfiche
and cassette. Bill had an internationalist outlook and travelled to Poland,
Russia, Holland and U.S.A. He was decorated twice by both pre-, and post-communist
era Polish Governments for cultural services, and also received the Queen's
Silver Jubilee Award in 1977 for services to Scottish publishing.
A great advocate of Patrick Geddes, Bill himself had many facets and interests.
He loved the stimulation of writers, poets, artists, musicians, astrologers
and philosophers, social activists - people like Sorley MacLean, Sydney
Goodsir Smith, Krishnamurti who visited the family home in Thankerton, Joy
Henry of Chapman Magazine, Jim Hendry, 'Kilbucho', JD Fergusson, Donald
Bain, Boguslaw Shaeffer, Eric Chisholm, and others too numerous to mention.
Bill could be called the midwife of the Scottish Renaissance - a dreamer
with a purpose. But above all he was a super-optimist and could never see
the down side of anything, a blind spot which would lead to some of his
later financial complications. Keith Bovey once described him in Scots Independent
as "The patriot with a smile", that smile often transforming into
an impish chuckle of amazement.
William MacLaren MacLellan leaves a wife Agnes Walker, a concert pianist
and well known interpreter of Chopin, two daughters, Janet and Kirsty and
a granddaughter, Fiona.
Obituary Notice published in The Scotsman, October 1996