The North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board (1943–1990) was founded to design, construct and manage hydroelectricity projects in the Highlands of Scotland. It is regarded as one of the major achievements of Scottish politician Thomas Johnston, who chaired the board from 1945 to 1959.
Background In the 1930s several schemes were proposed to develop hydro-electric power in the north of Scotland. These met with opposition by landowners, sporting interest and the coal mining industry on the grounds of competition. There was also opposition from official sources. Plans to build a power station at Kinlochleven for the benefit of the aluminium industry were shelved when Inverness County Council refused to allow water from the River Spey and River Laggan to cross the county border into Argyllshire. In 1938, the Caledonian Water Power bill was defeated in Parliament. This would have allowed a private company to build hydro-electric schemes in the Highlands, and its defeat was welcomed by the Inverness Courier, whose editorial proclaimed: The opponents of [the Bill] have been falsely represented as being opposed to the development of water power and the introduction of industry in every shape and form. Nothing could be further from the truth. What we ... maintain is that there shall be no further development of the water power resources of the Highlands until a Committee is set up by the Government to enquire into [how] ... these water resources should be developed for the benefit of the Highlands.
When World War II broke out, Tom Johnston, who had been a member of Parliament since the 1920s, was appointed as Regional Commissioner for Civil Defence for Scotland. In 1941, Winston Churchill, who was by then prime minister, having failed to convince Johnston to accept a post in London, asked him to be Secretary of State for Scotland. He agreed, providing that he could form a Council of State consisting of all five of the former secretaries of state who were still alive. If they could agree on an issue affecting Scotland, Johnston would look to Churchill to support the plan. He also did not want to receive any payment for the post, while the war lasted. Like the Inverness Courier, Johnston did not want private enterprise to be managing national resources, and had voted against the Caledonian Water Power bill in 1938. When another bill for a hydro-electric scheme in Glen Affric was put forward in September 1941, it was defeated, and Johnston announced that the government had its own plans for water power in the Highlands. In October, the Committee on Hydro-Electric Development in Scotland was set up, although it was generally known as the Cooper Committee, after its chairman Lord Cooper. Other members of the committee were William Douglas Weir, an engineer who had helped to plan Britain's national power grid in the 1920s; Neil Beaton, chairman of the Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society; James Williamson, a civil engineer who had been involved with hydro-electric schemes in Galloway in the 1930s; and John A. Cameron of the Scottish Land Court.
Prior to the committee meeting, Cooper was sceptical of its aims, believing that most of the feasible hydro-electric schemes in Scotland had been explored by the Snell Committee, which met between 1918 and 1921. With the exception of the Glen Affric scheme and the West Highland scheme, both of which had failed to gain parliamentary approval, the only schemes left to pursue were small and unlikely to be viable. He initially dismissed the subsequent Hilleary Report as amateurish, but careful study of it convinced him that some action could be taken. Despite the wartime conditions, the committee devoted the first half of 1942 to researching existing documentation and consulting with a wide range of organisations, including the Central Electricity Board, the Electricity Commission, fishery boards, local authorities, estate owners and even the Royal Scottish Automobile Club. The committee published their reportPresented to Parliament December 1942 Cmd. 6406, 1943 on 15 December 1942, and it was quite remarkable, not least for its clarity and lack of ambiguity. It was systematic, analytical and realistic, causing Johnson to tell the House of Commons that it was 'by common consent, a masterly production and a model of terse, constructive and courageous draftsmanship.'387 H.C.Deb., 5th series (1942-43), col 181, quoted in It argued that state policy had for over twenty years discouraged or prohibited private enterprise from developing the water resources of the Highlands, and had failed to produce its own strategy, resulting in deepening depression gripping the region. It suggested that the only realistic solution was a new public body called the North of Scotland Hydro-electric Board to initiate and develop schemes, including the distribution of power in areas where there was no existing supply network.
Johnson worked hard to ensure that the report would be well received. He talked to many people across the political spectrum, attempting to disarm potential opponents. Civil servants working for the Scottish Office also worked to understand potential opposition to the scheme, noting that the most likely group to oppose it would be the Coal Owners Association, who had a powerful influence in Parliament. By the time it was put before Parliament, Johnson had obtained cross party support from eight Cabinet ministers, including the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Kingsley Wood. At its second reading in the House of Commons, Johnson stated that the bill was a 'partial remedy' for the malaise of the Highlands, which was 'rapidly bleeding to death' as a result of outward migration. He emphasised that surplus power would be sold to the national grid, to defray the costs of distribution in remote rural areas, and that the new board would be responsible for economic development and social improvement of large swathes of the Highlands. Despite the clear vision of the original report, large numbers of checks were added to the bill, requiring parliamentary approval at every stage of implementation, to the extent that James Henderson-Stewart of East Fife, who represented the Liberal National Party, moved an amendment to attempt to free the board from such bureaucratic interference, arguing that if Parliament was not going to trust the board to do its job, then they should not set it up in the first place. His amendment was later withdrawn when the Lord Advocate agreed to amend the bill at its committee stage, based on the objections raised during the debate.
The bill was received enthusiastically in the House of Lords, where it was presented by Lord Alness. There was widespread support for the measures, and particular praise for Tom Johnson. Lord Airlie stated that speed was important, as residents were unlikely to remain content with the economic depression of the region for long. Finally, Lord Lovat appealed that when projects were implemented, they should use Scottish workers from the Highland Division when they returned from war, rather than Irish navvies. The necessary legal powers were granted by the (6 & 7 Geo. 6. c. 32), which was passed on 5 August 1943.
Constitution In September 1943, the names of the five board members were announced. Four were jointly appointed by the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Fuel and Power. The fifth was a nominee of the Central Electricity Board, and a member of that board. The chairman was to be David Ogilvy, the Earl of Airlie. He had worked with Johnson when they had been in charge of civil defence, and had initially been critical of the 1943 act because its scope was too limited. The deputy chairman and chief executive was Edward MacColl, an engineer with wide experience of hydro-electric projects and electrical distribution networks. His was the only full-time post. Neil Beaton had previously been a member of the Cooper Committee, Hugh Mackenzie was the Provost of Inverness, and the final member was the Central Electricity Board nominee, Walter Whigham, who was also a director of the Bank of England. Ill health led to him being replaced by the engineer Sir Duncan Watson soon afterwards.
Shortly after the conception of the board, Major Gwilym Lloyd George, the Minister for Fuel and Power, led a committee which considered how electricity supply could be rationalised in Britain. Johnson argued that his proposals would destroy the principles of the 1943 act, and eventually ensured that the Hydro-Electric Board was excluded from them. Some initial work under the act was carried out by civil servants, but the board took office in January 1944, and moved into a permanent office in Rothesay Terrace, Edinburgh a few weeks later. MacColl knew how to build up new organisations, and assembled a group of enthusiastic engineers around him, all of whom were relatively young. It was a fairly small team, and they were always over-worked. MacColl then invited five engineers, drawn from major engineering consultancies, to consider how the aims of the act could be implemented. This constituted the Panel of Technical Advisers, and they became an important and permanent part of the board's activities for fifteen years.
The headquarters of the board in Rothesay Terrace, Edinburgh were located outside the board's operating area. The 1943 act specified the management board was to comprise a chairman and not less than four and not more than eight members. The board in 1958 comprised Thomas Johnston (chairman), Sir Hugh Mackenzie (deputy chairman), Sir John Erskine, Sir George McGlashan, A. I. Mackenzie, A. Macrae, I. A. Duncan Millar, William Hughes, and John Jardine.
When the UK electricity supply industry was nationalised in 1948, the board took over the assets of the Grampian Electricity Supply Company and other bodies producing electricity in the northern part of Scotland, these were: Campbeltown and Mid-Argyll, Crieff, Dunoon and District, Loch Leven, North of Scotland, Peterhead, Stornoway, Thurso and District, Dundee, Aberdeen, Perth, Inverness, Buckie, Lossiemouth, Branderburgh and Oban corporations.
Activity One of the first responsibilities was to produce a development scheme. This would detail the available water resources in their area of operation, which had the potential to later become 'constructional schemes'. MacColl pressed on at breakneck speed, and within three months they had a list of 102 sites with potential for development. These ranged in size from small, such as one utilising Loch nan Gillean (Plockton) and streams, with a capacity of four million units (kilowatt-hours per year) to huge schemes such as that at Glen Affric, with a capacity of 440 million units. The capacity of all the schemes combined was estimated to be 6,274 million units, which was considerably more than the 4,000 million units suggested by the Cooper Committee. MacColl wanted to ensure that no scheme could later be rejected because it had not been included in the development scheme. Guthrie Brown, one of the panel of technical advisers, later wrote of his amazement at MacColl's detailed knowledge of so vast an area and its potential for water power.