Biography

John Blythe Kinross was the son of John Kinross RSA, an Edinburgh architect. Early in life he developed an interest in financial matters, and after a short period in industry in Scotland left in 1928 for England, where he worked first of all for Sir Arthur Wheeler and the Gresham Trust, and then in various Issuing Houses of his own, before becoming involved, from its foundation in 1945, with the Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation (ICFC), an organisation formed specifically to finance small businesses, a subject on which Kinross had long held strong and innovatory views.

From the 1950’s Kinross became interested in a number of important charitable works, mostly financed through the Mary Kinross Charitable Trust of which he is the founder. He has also done a great deal of work for the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the Royal Scottish Academy, and for the foundation of university research scholarships. He was also, when young, a skilled actor and stage manager, and his papers contain a considerable amount of material relating to theatrical life in Edinburgh in the 1920s.

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