David Flint rose to become an internationally renowned academic and businessman after his aspiring career came to an abrupt halt almost before it had begun.
As a young Glasgow University graduate he had just started an apprenticeship as a chartered accountant when he was mobilised as a Territorial Army officer on the eve of the Second World War. He had been training in accountancy for ten days.
For the next seven years he served in the Royal Corp of Signals, landing on the Normandy beaches on D-Day, fighting his way through Holland, Belgium and Germany and gaining a mention in dispatches for his gallant service in northwest Europe.
On his return to Britain, having been awarded an additional degree in absentia, he completed his apprenticeship, qualified as a chartered accountant and enjoyed a hugely successful career, culminating in his appointment as vice-principal of one of Scotland’s oldest academic institutions, his alma mater.
Born in Glasgow’s Queens Park, Flint was educated at Strathbungo and Sir John Neilson Cuthbertson schools before attending the High School of Glasgow. He graduated with an MA and joined the Glasgow office of the accountants Mann, Judd, Gordon & Co on August 14, 1939.
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Just over a week later he was called up to serve his country. Stationed at Eaglesham near Glasgow, he was on duty as officer in charge of No 1 Company, 12th Anti-Aircraft Divisional Signals, on the night in 1941 when Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess, parachuted into a nearby field on a futile peace mission to see the Duke of Hamilton.
Hess spent the rest of the war incarcerated while Flint became a major in the army and was part of the D-Day force that spelt the end for Hitler’s occupation of Europe. He went ashore from a landing craft tank near Hermanville on June 6, 1944, advancing across the continent in the mission to liberate millions from Nazi domination.
On his return from war service in 1946, having been awarded a bachelor of laws degree in absentia, he finished his chartered accountancy training with Mann Judd Gordon & Co and became a partner in the firm. He had started lecturing part-time in industrial accountancy at Glasgow University in 1950, and in 1964 became its Johnstone Smith professor of accountancy.
For several years he combined the post with his work for the accountancy firm but retired in 1971 to concentrate on his academic commitments. The same year he was appointed dean of Glasgow University’s faculty of law, and in 1975 he was made chairman of accountancy and elected president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS). By that time he had served as assistant examiner in law and chaired the Association of University Teachers of Accounting.
Appointed vice-principal of Glasgow University in 1981, he retired four years later having also been a member of the Commission for Local Authority Accounts in Scotland and president of the European Accounting Association. During his academic career Flint had been at the forefront of developing accountancy studies at the university.
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In retirement he and his wife, Dorothy, who had three children — David, Douglas and Dorothy — left Glasgow to live in Auchterarder, Perthshire. Flint continued to contribute to his field as guest professor at universities in Odense, Denmark, and Leuven, Belgium; as honorary professor of accountancy at Stirling University; and as visiting professor at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University.
He was honoured with lifetime achievement awards by the British Accounting Association in 2004 and by ICAS in 2013. In September last year he was finally awarded France’s Légion d’Honneur, recognising his service in liberating the country from Nazi rule.
David Flint, professor of accountancy and university vice-principal, was born on February 24, 1919. He died on May 14, 2017, aged 98