Bryce Houston (38-41) died on September 5, 2005 as the OP Society was informed by a relative in 2020. Originally, the Society learned of his death in 2007 after his OP Magazine was returned marked “deceased.” In 2020 a relative got in touch to report that Bryce had died in 2005. His wife Mary (nee Morrell; part of a large Yorkshire family that sent three boys to Pangbourne) died in 2006. He left a son Alick. 

Houston arrived at the NCP from a preparatory school in Perthshire. At Pangbourne he was in Macquarie Division and Form Vc. He obtained School Certificate and was a member of the Dramatic Society. According to The Log, he went into “Civil life.” In fact, asthma and a failed medical had curtailed his intended entry into the Royal Navy and WW2, along with the chance of further formal education. 

Engineering was his second love after the sea and so he returned home to Scotland to develop farm machinery products with his brother, culminating in a patented potato harvester which was, according to a Eulogy given at his funeral at St Mary’s Haddington, East Lothian, “well ahead of its time.”

Subsequently, he joined the International Harvester Company, working in London. Here he progressed to chief test and design engineer – “no mean achievement with no formal qualifications.” Work for this company greatly expanded his horizons, but a stint in Doncaster aggravated his health and he returned to Edinburgh where he joined the engineering firm James Bowen & Sons. 

In 1963 he became managing director of an offshoot called Bowen Agricultural as the company diversified into grain dryers, farm buildings and soil injectors. In the mid-1970s, with Alick interested in the business, he purchased the company from the Bowens and it became Bryce Houston & Son Ltd. In conjunction with building the firm, he played a leading role in a trade association called BAGMA (British Agricultural & Garden Machinery Association), culminating in its presidency, as well as becoming governor of two agricultural colleges in Scotland.

Bryce Houston’s Eulogy concluded: “Bryce inherited his mother’s self-belief, had total conviction in his own abilities and drove himself to achieve his goals. He was never morally challenged and was happy to step back from the limelight and let others take the credit.”