Donald Findlay

Donald Russell FindlayQC (born 17 March 1951) is an advocate and Queen's Counsel in Scotland. He has also held positions as a vice-chairman of Rangers Football Club and twice Rector of the University of St Andrews. He is now chairman of Cowdenbeath Football Club.

He is well known for a distinctive style of dress and manner, particularly the smoking of a pipe, as well as his staunch support for Unionism in Scotland and the Scottish Conservatives. He has faced some controversy over several incidents where he sang songs and told allegedly sectarian jokes.

Donald Findlay was born on 17 March 1951 in Cowdenbeath, Fife, the son of a church beadle. He was subsequently educated at Harris Academy in Dundee, and later at the University of Dundee and at the University of Glasgow. His academic links with the University of St Andrews (of which Dundee was once part) saw him elected as Lord Rector in 1993 and again in 1996. After his retirement from this position, he took the position of Chancellor of the University's Strafford Club. St Andrews, allegedly, dropped plans to award him an honorary degree after one of his controversial outbursts. At this time, he was also noted to be suffering from severe depression and later revealed that he had contemplated suicide.

Findlay is an atheist. In the mid-1990s he left his third wife Jennie to set up house with the Reporting Scotland television reporter Paddy Christie. This relationship later foundered.

In May 2011, Findlay was sent a parcel in the post to Cowdenbeath football club where he is chairman. Initially it was thought to contain a bomb but it was later revealed to contain a knife.

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