Sad Passing of Vice President David Tod
David Noel Tod B E M
Trustee and Founder Member of the Scottish Fisheries Museum
On Monday 14th February David Tod passed away peacefully in St Andrews Community Hospital.
David was a founder member of the Scottish Fisheries Museum Trust, with a long-standing involvement in all aspects of the Museum from Trustee, former Chairman to Vice-President. David was also instrumental in the founding of the SFM Boats Club to maintain and crew the Reaper in 1985, acting as Club Chairman for a time.
As a keen model-boat maker, he was also founding Chairman of the SFM Model Boat Club established in 2008 and has exhibited at every one of the Club’s annual exhibitions. He then worked with Alex Jordan of Jordan Boats to create the St Ayles Skiff design, setting up the St Ayles Rowing Club in 2010 and serving on the Committee of the Scottish Coastal Rowing Association, founded to promote the craft and to organise inter-club competitions.
During his time at the Museum, he took part in several significant events and museum developments. His vision saw the creation of the working boatyard within the museum site to maintain the operational boats in the SFM collection, as a chance for volunteers to learn and transmit traditional boat-building skills, and for visitors to witness craftsmen at work.
As Chair, he welcomed the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to the Museum on the 1st of July 1982 when he presented Her Majesty with a box of locally caught prawns. Over the years he also actively volunteered within the museum providing invaluable assistance in logistical planning and being able to move large, heavy items, including the 80 ft Zulu vessel Research LK62. Despite increasingly poor health, he welcomed HRH the Princess Royal to the Museum on the 28th of October 2021 and remained active in Museum affairs until recently, attending meetings from his hospital bed.
From a fishing family on his mother’s side, in his professional life, David trained as a Marine Engineer and also worked as a fisherman. He bought his first boat in 1966, followed by the St Adrian KY 245 which he had built at Campbeltown Shipyard in 1970 to his own design. She was the first of her kind to be equipped with a combined winch and net drum for hauling and stowing her trawl. He mainly fished for prawns in the Firth of Forth but also spent time fishing off the west coast. He also ran his own marine engineering company, Miller of Crail, from 1989 and served on a number of local and national fishing industry bodies.
With the SFM Boats Club he accepted the Queens Award for Volunteering in 2011. He was awarded a BEM for his services to the Museum and Scottish fishing heritage in 2017.
