My partner, Bob Gannicott, who has died of leukaemia aged 69, was an adventurer and prospector who emigrated from the UK to Canada with £100 in his pocket but made a fortune after he was instrumental in establishing the Canadian diamond industry.
Bob was born in Sandford, Somerset, the son of Ida, a teacher, and Ivor, an engineer who had served on submarines during the second world war. Bob passed the 11-plus and went from grammar school to Nottingham University to study mining engineering, but dropped out to go to Canada on a £10 emigration ticket (repayable if he returned).
He and I had been together since we were 15, our parents being neighbours. We were two sides of the same coin, spending most weekends caving in the Mendip hills. I agreed to join him in Canada on finishing my degree, but he lost faith that I would do so and he met and married someone else. I also married, had children and subsequently divorced. We had no contact for 30 years.
By hitchhiking and riding freight trains, Bob made his way to Yellowknife, in Canada’s Northwest Territories, initially to work in the area’s goldmines. But he also staked some claims of his own and one of these, made when he was just 19, was 25 years later to become Canada’s first diamond mine, the Diavik.
He meanwhile went back to university, Carleton in Ottawa, to obtain a geology degree, and then spent many years mining in Greenland. He loved the isolation of the Arctic wilderness. Returning eventually to the Northwest Territories, he forged a partnership to search for diamonds and ultimately struck lucky on his old claim.
With his growing wealth, Bob – a great visionary and strategist – saw an opportunity to change the culture of the global diamond industry. He acquired the famous but struggling American jewellery business Harry Winston, and grew the brand. In this way he “bookended” the industry and became ideally placed to challenge the primacy of the De Beers group. He eventually sold Harry Winston to Swatch Group in 2013.
Bob had meanwhile moved his new company, Dominion Diamonds, from Toronto to Yellowknife to create employment for local indigenous people, for whose rights he had long campaigned.
He had divorced and asked me for a second time to make a life with him, despite my having been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. I stood down from my role as head of the Charity Commission and we got together, spending half the year in the Northwest Territories and half in Somerset.
Canada is now the world’s third largest producer of diamonds. A foundation is to be set up in Bob’s name to continue his work for the indigenous people of the Northwest Territories.
