Fraser, Angus M.

Angus McKay Fraser, born at Maxwelltown in Dumfries on 10 March 1928, was the son of a prison officer. He was educated at Falkirk High School and Glasgow University, where he read Modern Languages. After spending his National Service in the Royal Artillery in France, he became a paratrooper in the Territorial Army and by 1966 had risen to the rank of major. His career in the Civil Service began in 1953 at Customs and Excise, and in the 1960s and 1970s he was involved in the negotiations for British entry into the EEC. In 1981 he was appointed First Civil Service Commissioner, and then served as Chairman of Customs and Excise from 1983 to 1987. From 1988, until his retirement in 1992, he was Efficiency Adviser to the Prime Minister. He received a CBE in 1981 and a knighthood in 1985. While still at school he had developed an interest in the books of George Borrow and he became the leading British authority on Borrow and the history of the gypsies. He published numerous articles in academic journals and edited several collections of Borrow's letters. In 1992, his major work The Gypsies was published. At his death in June 2001, he was president of the George Borrow Society, which he had been instrumental in founding in 1991.