David Milne

Sir David Milne, GCB (11 March 1896 – 4 February 1972) was a Scottish civil servant, who served as Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Scotland from 1946 to 1959. Early life, war and education David Milne was born in Edinburgh on 11 March 1896 to the Rev. David Munro Milne (1863–1927), an Aberdeen-educated minister and the incumbent at St Luke's Church, Edinburgh from 1896 to 1927, and his wife, Jane Mackay (died 1922), daughter of James Mackay, of Banffshire. He had two sisters, Mary Catherine (born 1899; she married James Davie, MC, and settled in South Africa) and Agnes Jane (born 1906; she married Koert Nicholas Pretorius, of Botswana, formerly British Protectorate of Bechuanaland). Milne was educated at Daniel Stewart's College and the University of Edinburgh, although his studies at the latter were interrupted by the First World War (he served with the Royal Scots from 1915 to 1919). After the war, he completed his classics degree at Edinburgh and won several scholarships. Career, honours and retirement Milne joined the Scottish Office as an Assistant Principal in 1921. After seven years he was promoted to be Private Secretary to the Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Scottish Office. Two years later, he became Private Secretary to the Secretary of State and in 1935 he was promoted to Assistant Secretary to head up the Scottish Office's new Local Government Branch in Edinburgh, which was meant to enable Scottish people and institutions to meet with government officials without having to travel to the Scottish Office in London. Four years later, Milne was promoted to Deputy Secretary at the new Scottish Home Department, and he was promoted to become its Secretary in 1942. Milne's final promotion in the civil service was to be Permanent Under-Secretary to the Scottish Office, in which office he served from 1946 until his retirement in 1959.