Every year since 1963 fortunate men and women from all walks of life have been awarded a scholarship which has enabled them to travel to a country of their choice to study and research their own particular vocation. In deriving fresh insight into how others tackle their problems, the hope has always been that this knowledge benefits not only the individual Scholar but also Scotland. The Scholar becomes an unofficial ambassador for Scotland, producing a report on his or her experiences or conclusions.

To appreciate the full significance of what it means to be a Thyne Scholar, one needs to look back at the benefactor himself, William Thyne III. Born in 1901 in Edinburgh, the grandson of the founder of William Thyne Ltd., printers, he left school at fifteen to go straight into the business to learn printing. He regretted his lack of a full public school education all his life, and preferred his youthful employees to have had leadership experience and training. From 1919-21 he spent two years in the USA at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh and in East Aurora, New York State, where he met his wife, Virginia Neeb Williams, whom he married in 1931.

By this time William Thyne Ltd. had given up making paper bags and gone wholly into printed folding cartons. By about 1955 the firm had outgrown its Leith premises and Willie bought a site at Sighthill where he built a new factory which is still there today. In the early 1960s William Thyne (Holdings) bought R & R Clark Ltd. where George Bernard Shaw had all of his books printed. At about the same time Willie started William Thyne (Plastics) Ltd. in Penicuik to make expanded polystyrene packing, which at this time was virtually unknown. Finally, in 1969, the three operating companies were sold to Mardon Packaging and Willie continued as Director and Honorary President until his death in 1978.

Willie Thyne's other interests during his long business career included involvement with the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, of which he became President. He was a Director, and later Chairman, of the Clydesdale Bank, and a Director of the Midland Bank for six years. He served as a Board Member on the "old" Scottish Tourist Board and, as its Finance Convener, was a tower of strength when it was struggling to become a statutory body, which it did in 1970.

Willie Thyne's involvement with the English Speaking Union in Scotland started in the early 1950s, and in 1952 he was one of the key figures in the re-establishment of the Scottish National Committee. At this time the ESU operated from rented premises, with all of the usual financial problems, which persuaded the committee to move to a property of their own. Having raised half the cost of the premises on Atholl Crescent and being resigned to having a loan repayable over a number of years, it was suggested that the Committee should try to find a benefactor to put up money for the property. A further suggestion was that it should be given to an Educational Trust, requiring ESU Scotland to pay a commercial rent for the property, this rental income to be spent on scholarships bearing the name of the benefactor. The rest is history, and one, two or even five Thyne Scholars have benefited annually from the income.