Samuel Laird Galbraith (18 October 1945 – 18 August 2014) was a Scottish politician and

neurosurgeon Neurosurgery or neurological surgery, known in common parlance as brain surgery, is the medical specialty concerned with the surgical treatment of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spinal cord and peri ...

who served as

Minister for Environment, Sport and Culture The Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform was a cabinet post in the Scottish Government. The Cabinet Secretary was supported by the Minister for Rural Affairs and the Natural Environment, who also reported to the ...

from 2000 to 2001 and Minister for Children and Education from 1999 to 2000. Galbraith was a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Strathkelvin and Bearsden from

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...

to 2001, and a

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

(MP) in the British House of Commons for the equivalent seat from

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, ...

to 2001. The Labour/

Liberal Democrat Several political parties from around the world have been called the Liberal Democratic Party or Liberal Democrats. These parties usually follow a liberal democratic ideology. Active parties Former parties See also *Liberal democracy *Lib ...

coalition faced demands from Scottish National Party (SNP) politicians, including future First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, for Galbraith to resign after the SQA examinations controversy in 2000.

Early life

Galbraith was born in

Clitheroe Clitheroe () is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Ribble Valley, Lancashire, England; it is located north-west of Manchester. It is near the Forest of Bowland and is often used as a base for tourists visiting the area. In 2018, the Cl ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...

, to Samuel Galbraith and Catherine Navi

He was educated at Greenock

High School A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

. He studied at

Glasgow University , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

, where he received honours in

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...

. Galbraith was a respected

, who worked at Glasgow's

Southern General Hospital The Southern General Hospital (SGH) was a large teaching hospital with an acute operational bed complement of approximately 900 beds. The hospital was located in Linthouse in the south west of Glasgow, Scotland. All facilities and services have b ...

Political career

At the 1987 general election, he was returned as

for the Strathkelvin and Bearsden constituency, and held the seat until standing down at the 2001 general election. He was a

Scottish Office The Scottish Office was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom from 1885 until 1999, exercising a wide range of government functions in relation to Scotland under the control of the Secretary of State for Scotland. Following the es ...

Minister between 1997 and 1999. Galbraith served as Minister for Children and Education in the Scottish Executive under

Donald Dewar Donald Campbell Dewar (21 August 1937 – 11 October 2000) was a Scottish politician who served as the inaugural First Minister of Scotland and Leader of the Labour Party in Scotland from 1999 until his death in 2000. He previously served as ...

from 1999 to 2000 and then as Minister for Environment, Sport and Culture. On 20 March 2001 he announced his resignation from ministerial office and his parliamentary seats for health reasons.

Personal life

He was married in 1987 to Nicola Tennant, and they had three daughters, Mhairi, Heather and Fion

In prior years he was an avid Mountaineering, mountaineer who had climbed all the

Munro A Munro () is defined as a mountain in Scotland with a height over , and which is on the Scottish Mountaineering Club (SMC) official list of Munros; there is no explicit topographical prominence requirement. The best known Munro is Ben Nev ...

s and also climbed in the

Alps The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Swi ...

and

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 10 ...

. Galbraith received a

lung transplant Lung transplantation, or pulmonary transplantation, is a surgical procedure in which one or both lungs are replaced by lungs from a donor. Donor lungs can be retrieved from a living or deceased donor. A living donor can only donate one lung lobe. ...

in 1990, at Freeman's Hospital Newcastle (where he continued to receive treatment), due to fibrosing alveolitis, a condition that his elder sister died from. From 2006 he was chairman of the

Scottish Maritime Museum The Scottish Maritime Museum is an industrial museum with a Collection Recognised as Nationally Significant to Scotland. It is located at two sites in the West of Scotland in Irvine and Dumbarton, with a focus on Scotland's shipbuilding heritage ...

with facilities at Irvine, North Ayrshire and

Dumbarton Dumbarton (; also sco, Dumbairton; ) is a town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, on the north bank of the River Clyde where the River Leven flows into the Clyde estuary. In 2006, it had an estimated population of 19,990. Dumbarton was the ca ...

North Ayrshire Council North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' is ...

br>Committee reports and agenda
retrieved 22 July 2013. He died on 18 August 2014.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Galbraith, Sam 1945 births 2014 deaths Scottish Labour MPs Labour MSPs Ministers of the Scottish Government UK MPs 1987–1992 UK MPs 1992–1997 UK MPs 1997–2001 Members of the Scottish Parliament 1999–2003 Scottish surgeons Scottish neurosurgeons 20th-century Scottish medical doctors Lung transplant recipients People from Greenock Alumni of the University of Glasgow 20th-century surgeons