My friend Atholl Hill, who has died aged 82, was a silverware designer whose career reflected his considerable artistic talents. Pieces designed by Atholl include a silver plate for St Joseph’s church in Wool, Dorset, candelabra and a punchbowl for York University, a mace for St John’s University, Newfoundland, and a processional cross for the Chapels Royal at the Tower of London.
Born in Dundee to Louis Hill, a director of Low & Bonar jute merchants, and his wife, Agnes (nee Nairn), Atholl attended Morgan Academy, where he won the top prize for art in his final year and also captained a nationally successful team on the BBC radio show Top of the Form in 1952. He studied industrial design at Glasgow School of Art (1953-56), where, upon graduation, he was awarded the highest accolade, the Newbery medal.
Following graduation he did national service as a second lieutenant in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. A tank that the platoon restored can be found in the national Tank Museum in Bovington, Dorset. He completed a postgraduate degree in product design at Glasgow in 1960 and moved to London, where he took a job with a product design company for two years, then found employment with the Ministry of Works (1962-65).
After taking a silversmithing course, Atholl became a freeman of the Goldsmiths’ Company and from 1966 began teaching silversmithing part-time at Hornsey College of Art (now part of Middlesex University) as well as working for British Rail as an industrial designer on various projects, including the Advanced Passenger Train APT-E, a model of which is in the National Railway Museum, and the Sealink Hovercraft (1966-78).
Back in Scotland, Atholl became head of design at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee (1978-94); served on the Scottish Arts Council; and chaired Dundee Public Art and an Arbroath arts centre, Hospitalfield. His heroes were architects, designers and engineering pioneers such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright. He loved all kinds of music, but particularly Sibelius, Monteverdi and Purcell.
A quiet man with a wry sense of humour, he enjoyed sharing excellent cuisine, wine and The Glenlivet whisky. He had a strong social conscience and was a befriender in Dundee from 2000 to 2014, having himself sometimes experienced depression. Atholl’s home in Monifieth, Angus, was like an Aladdin’s cave of artistic goodies created by him and his family, or collected on their many travels.
He is survived by his second wife, Sasha (nee Daden), a teacher, whom he married in 1980, and their daughter, Chantal; by the three daughters, Emma, Chloe and Harriet, of his first marriage, which ended in divorce; and by five grandchildren.
