David Flint
20 OBITUARIES
Professor of accountancy and viceprincipal of Glasgow University
eve of the outbreak of war, he was later stationed at Eaglesham, just outside Glasgow, where he was on duty as officer in charge of No 1 Company, 12th Anti-aircraft Divisional Signals, when Hitler’s deputy, Rudolph Hess, parachuted into a nearby field in 1941 on a futile peace mission to see the Duke of Hamilton.
While Hess’s war ended there, Mr Flint went on to fight his way through Europe, reaching the rank of major. In Normandy on June 6, 1944 he went ashore from a landing craft tank near Hermanville, advancing through France, Holland, Belgium and Germany for the next year.
He was Mentioned in Despatches, for his gallant and distinguished service in north-west Europe, but it would be another seven decades before he and fellow troops, who helped to liberate France from Nazi rule, were finally honoured with the country’s highest award, the Legion d’Honneur, in 2016.
During his war service Mr Flint was awarded a Bachelor of Laws degree in absentia and, on his return home in 1946, he completed his chartered accountancy training with Mann Judd Gordon & Co and began lecturing part-time in industrial accountancy at his alma mater in 1950. The following year he became a partner in the firm and in 1964 he was appointed Glasgow University’s Johnstone Smith Professor of Accountancy, while still continuing in private practice.
Several years later he retired from the company to concentrate on his academic commitments, becoming Dean of Glasgow University’s Faculty of Law from 1971 to 1973. He was appointed to the university’s new chair of accountancy in 1975, the same year he became president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (Icas).
By that time he had already made valuable contributions to the institute’s education programme and served as assistant examiner in law. In the late 1970s he was also a member of the Commission for Local Authority Accounts in Scotland and later held the presidency of the European Accounting Association, from 1983-84.
Appointed vice-principal of Glasgow University in 1981, with a special interest in financial matters, his sphere of influence reached far beyond the ancient institution where he had been at the forefront of developing its accountancy studies, instituting the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Accountancy.
He also undertook reviews and investigations, notably a high-profile report for the liquidator of Upper Clyde Shipbuilders to determine the circumstances in which the directors carried on the business in the lead-up to liquidation.
After retiring to Auchterarder, Perthshire in 1985, he continued his academic activities as guest professor at universities in Odense, Denmark and Leuven, Belgium, as honorary professor of accountancy at Stirling University and as visiting professor at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University.
He is remembered by generations of students for his enthusiasm for the concept he championed of the standard of A True and Fair View.
His immeasurable contribution to his field and to Glasgow University was rewarded with an honorary degree of Doctor of the University in 2001.
He was also honoured with lifetime achievement awards by the British Accounting Association in 2004 and by Icas in 2013.
Predeceased by his wife Dorothy, whom he married in 1953, he is survived by their sons David and Douglas, daughter Dorothy, seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.