Robert Gayre

George Robert Gayre of Gayre and Nigg (6 August 1907 – 10 February 1996) was a Scottish anthropologist who founded Mankind Quarterly, a peer-reviewed academic journal which has been described as a "cornerstone of the scientific racism establishment". An expert on heraldry, he also founded The Armorial, and produced many books on this subject.

Gayre was born as Robert Gair on 6 August 1907 in Dublin to William Gillies Gair and Mary O'Connor. He earned an MA from University of Edinburgh, then studied at Exeter College, Oxford.

Gayre served with the British Expeditionary Force in France in 1939, as a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Artillery afterwards becoming Educational Adviser to the Allied Military Government of Italy, based in Palermo, where he fought for the exclusion of left-wing text-books and communist influence from the Italian education system. He was thereafter Director of Education to the Allied Control Commission for Italy, based in Naples; and Chief of Education and Religious Affairs, German Planning Unit, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force. After the war he spent a considerable amount of time in India where he was instrumental in the establishment of the Italo-Indian Institute.

Both Gayre and Sir Thomas Innes of Learney were authors of books on heraldry. As Chief of Clan Gayre, Gayre appended "of Gayre and Nigg" becoming Grand Almoner, and Hereditary Commander of Lochore, of the Order of Saint Lazarus (statuted 1910).

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