David Gemmell McKinlay was born in
Riddrie, eastern
Glasgow, on 23 August 1923. He was educated at
Allan Glen's School before studying Civil Engineering at the
University of Glasgow from 1941 to 1944, graduating with a BSc and continuing with postgraduate research. During this period, he also served in the
Royal Navy in the Pacific theatre as an Air Engineer Officer during the
Second World War. After the war, in 1946, McKinlay returned to Scotland and briefly worked for Dumfries County Council before joining the Royal Technical College in Glasgow. He remained there for four decades, including during its transition to becoming the
University of Strathclyde. He was also seconded to the engineering firm
Babtie, Shaw and Morton and, in 1972, became the institution's first Professor of Soil Mechanics. From the 1960s, McKinlay resided in
Bearsden with his family and was active in his local church as an elder. In recognition of his international engineering and humanitarian work, particularly in India and Malawi, he was awarded a
Paul Harris Fellowship by
Rotary International in 1987. That same year, he was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Hugh B. Sutherland, Professor
Alexander Coull,
William George Nicholson Geddes, and
John Atwell. From 1994, McKinlay worked as a consultant with the engineering firm Crouch Hogg and Waterman in Glasgow. In late 1996, he emigrated to
Australia to be closer to his daughter. He died on 4 March 1997 in
Drysdale, Victoria. ==Family==