Hammond Burke Nicholson, Jr.
June 14, 1917 —June 27, 2007
BARON OF BALVENIE
CHIEFTAIN IN CLAN MACNICOL AND
CHAIRMAN, THE HIGHLAND CLAN MACNEACAIL FEDERATION
Obituary from the 1 August 2007 Issue of The Scotsman in Edinburgh:
HAMMOND Burke Nicholson Jr., who has died in his 91st year, was a senior executive of the Coca-Cola Corporation who became a significant benefactor in Scottish cultural life.
He helped pioneer the Coca-Cola business in Europe, and was Senior Vice President of the company in Atlanta, Georgia. He developed the brand in Europe, and became a major player in the long standing corporate war with rival Pepsi-Cola.
Interested in his genealogical roots as a member of Clan MacNicol, Nicholson was a former High Commissioner for the Americas in the Highland Clan MacNicol, Chieftain and Counsellor to the Clan Chief, and a trustee of the Clan MacNicol Trust on Skye. A decade ago he was appointed Chairman of the Highland Clan MacNeacail Federation.
A longstanding enthusiast for heraldry, he was able as a descendant of a Scot to petition for arms from the Lord Lyon, and this he did in 1988, followed by a flowering of family heraldry with individual matriculations of arms for eight family members. He backed this by commissioning a series of banners that flew in line on great occasions at Highland games in North America, each flag showing the correct difference of each cadet in exuberant colour. His infectious eagerness saw him snapping up the Barony of Balvenie when that came on the market, and he re-recorded arms in 1995 to display the red cap of a feudal baron above his shield. The Barony, centred on Balvenie Castle in Banffshire, brought him into close contact with Dufftown, and typically of the man, he took the responsibility of his Barony seriously, becoming Honorary President of Dufftown Highland Games, patron of Dufftown Horticultural Society and a notable benefactor of Mortlach Church.
He also destined largesse to the Royal Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, to the publication of a book on Clan MacNicol, and sponsored a splendid catalogue to accompany the 1995 Edinburgh exhibition of heraldry. Eldest of five siblings, Nicholson of Balvenie was educated in Atlanta,Toronto and the London School of Economics. He began on one of the lower rungs of Coca-Cola in a bottling plant in Greenfield, Massachusetts, but his ability gained swift recognition. He worked with the company in New York, and after war service in the South Atlantic, engaged his Europhile tendencies with executive positions in London, Amsterdam, Zurich, Paris, Brus- sels and back to London, becoming President, then Chairman of Coca-Cola Europe.
Always a prominent figure in his red Nichol- son kilt, Balvenie continued to visit Scotland annually. Family commitment to Clan matters continues through his younger brother, Har- man (to whom the Barony of Balvenie falls), and his three sons.
He is survived by three sons from his marriage of sixty-one years to the late Juliet Duncan Nicholson: H. Burke (Nick) Nicholson III, Jeremy Duncan Nicholson, and Graham Seaford Nicholson; and three grandchildren.
MURRAY NICOLSON
CHIEFTAIN IN CLAN MACNICOL CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS
I would like to pay a tribute to the life of Hammond Burke Nicholson Jr. – Burke Nicholson of Balvenie. With his brother Harman he was a major force in the establishment of the Clan MacNicol societies and their Chief. I first got to know Burke and Harman through their late brother John, whom I had contacted in the early 1980s with a view to starting a Clan Mac- Nicol society in North America. At that time there was a dispute between our late Chief and Lord Carnock regarding the Chiefship of the Clan Nicolson, which had been decided in Carnock’s favour. Burke worked astutely with other Clansmen and lawyers in Edinburgh in Scotland to settle the matter at the Court of the Lord Lyon, resulting in Ian MacNeacail of Scorrybreac being recognised as the Chief of the Highland Clan MacNeacail in 1987, a separate and distinct clan from Clan Nicolson. Burke had a wide knowledge of Scottish history and heraldry, and was well known and respected at the Lyon Court. It was Burke’s reading of an epic poem The Bruce composed about 1375 that alerted the Clan to its support with warriors of Robert the Bruce’s brother, Edward, in 1316 at the siege of Carrickfergus Castle in Ireland. As a result of this discovery, the Clan Chief’s coat of arms were enhanced by the addition of Supporters (two Highland warriors) in 1998, indicating the significance of our Highland Clan.
Burke was also instrumental in the formation of the Highland Clan MacNeacail Federation, the first of its kind, with its own coat of arms, and he was its first Chairman. Any of our Clan societies around the world accepted by our Chief becomes a member of the Federation. The Federation itself is a Founding Member (along with Burke and Harman) of the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, and resulted in Burke being presented to the Queen at Holyrood Palace after the Museum’s opening ceremony.
For all his many contributions to the Clan, Burke was granted the honor of being made a Chieftain of the Clan by our late Chief Ian MacNeacail in 1992. Burke attended several of the Clan’s international gatherings on the Isle of Skye, often accompanied by his late wife Juliet until her passing in May 2000, and he hosted many memorable dinners there.
On a personal note, Burke was a great friend and help to me during the start-up years when I was President of the Clan MacNicol Society of North America from 1985 to 1994. I had many telephone calls from him speaking with his courteous Southern intonations which would begin with the words, “It occurs to me that....”and then would follow some instruction which I would quickly be made to appreciate would be wise for me to follow! It may give away my Yankee predisposition, but to me Burke was my idea of the perfect Southern gentleman–effortlessly polite but always very firm and clear in expressing his opinions. I will miss those phone calls.
Thank you, Burke, for all you that have done for me and for our Clan.
Murray Nicolson, Chieftain in Clan MacNicol, Concord, Massachusetts
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