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Bill Gammell

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Bill Gammell
Birth nameWilliam Benjamin Bowring Gammell
Date of birth (1952-12-29) 29 December 1952 (age 71)
Place of birthEdinburgh, Scotland
Rugby union career
Position(s) Wing
Amateur team(s)
Years Team Apps (Points)
Edinburgh Wanderers ()
Provincial / State sides
Years Team Apps (Points)
Edinburgh District ()
International career
Years Team Apps (Points)
1976-77 Scotland 'B' 2
1977-78 Scotland 5 (8)

Sir William Benjamin Bowring Gammell FRSE (born 29 December 1952) is a Scottish businessman and former Scotland international rugby union player.[1]

Early life

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Gammell attended Fettes College, where he was friends with future British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. After Fettes, Gammell attended the University of Stirling where he obtained a BA in Economics and Accountancy.[2]

Rugby Union career

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Amateur career

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He played for Edinburgh Wanderers.[3]

Provincial career

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He played for Edinburgh District.[3]

International career

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He was capped by Scotland 'B' to play France 'B' in 1976 and 1977.[4]

He then was given a full senior cap for Scotland in 1977. He went on to earn five international caps in total. He scored two tries on his debut, against Ireland at Murrayfield in 1977, and played against Japan in 1977 in Tokyo when he scored four tries in the Scots' 74–9 victory.[5]

Business career

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After his rugby career was ended by injury, Gammell founded Cairn Energy in Edinburgh in 1981. Gammell's father invested in US oil company Bush-Overbey, owned by future US President George H. W. Bush. The two families became friends, with George W. Bush attending Gammell's wedding in Glasgow in 1983.[2] Gammell was appointed Cairn's Chief Executive on its initial listing in 1988.[6]

In the mid-1990s, he led the company in a radical reallocation of its assets, moving out of US and North Sea oil and gas concerns and into neglected fields in South Asia. The company's fortunes soared in 2004, when a field it had bought in 2001 (for $7.5 million) from Shell in the Indian province of Rajasthan was found to contain close to 1.1 billion barrels of oil,[7] catapulting it into the FTSE 100.[8]

In 2006, Gammell founded Winning Scotland, a charity that builds confidence and resilience in young people.[6]

In the 2006 New Year Honours list, Gammell was made a Knight Bachelor "for services to Industry in Scotland",[9] and in 2017 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.[10] Gammell received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 2007,[11] and an Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration from Robert Gordon University in 2011.[12]

References

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  1. ^ "William Benjamin Bowring Gammell". ESPN scrum.
  2. ^ a b "A brief history of Sir Bill Gammell". The Guardian. 24 August 2010. Retrieved 16 July 2023.
  3. ^ a b "The Glasgow Herald - Google News Archive Search". news.google.com.
  4. ^ "Opportunity knocks for Gammell and Wilson". Evening Times. 4 February 1977. p. 46.
  5. ^ "Rugby Union - ESPN Scrum - Statsguru - Player analysis - Bill Gammell - Test matches". ESPN scrum.
  6. ^ a b "Sir Bill Gammell". Winning Scotland. Retrieved 16 July 2023.
  7. ^ Pfeifer, Sylvia (5 September 2004). "Cairn's Indian oil find comes in at the top end of City Forecasts". The Daily Telegraph. London.
  8. ^ Hope, Christopher (8 September 2004). "Cairn joins the big time and pledges to go it alone". The Daily Telegraph. London.
  9. ^ "Queen honours star-studded Scots". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 31 March 2017.
  10. ^ "RSE Welcomes 60 New Fellows" (Press release). Royal Society of Edinburgh. 15 February 2017. Retrieved 28 March 2017.
  11. ^ "Annual Review 2007 : Principal's Review". www1.hw.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 29 March 2016.
  12. ^ "News". rgu.ac.uk. Retrieved 16 January 2023.
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