Alan Rind has died unexpectedly aged 81. He was a highly successful property developer and investor who kept out of the limelight preferring to give much of his wealth to good causes. He was appointed CVO in 2021 for his services as a trustee at St George’s Windsor. He became a Vice President of the OPC in the same year.
Ed Vaizey (1981-85), OPC President, commented that “Alan was one of the most quietly successful and generous people I have met. His pleasure in giving without fuss a large donation towards bursaries and buildings at the school, including the furniture for the new chapel, was palpable. The Pauline Community is extremely grateful to him.”
In 2017, Simon Bishop (1962-65) profiled Alan in Atrium’s forerunner Old Pauline News. Here are some extracts from that article.
“Alan describes surviving the crash of 1973 and he says, ‘A number of people went down. Friends, acquaintances went bust. Public companies were failing. Dennis Healey, then Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, had put a freeze on rents, causing property companies to lose their cashflow thus creating a near meltdown of the banks as one result. We were fortunate to survive.’ Alan was by then running the family trust. Thanks to a combination of timing and good luck, Alan had managed to avoid some of the pitfalls of the UK property crashes of the 1970s and 1980s, expanding operations to the US, where funds were invested, mainly in medical office buildings in Florida.
In 2007, Alan met Major General Sir Michael Hobbs KCVO, Governor of the Military Knights of Windsor, who introduced him to the community that is centred upon St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. Alan was invited to join the Bray Fellowship, under the patronage of the Duke of Edinburgh, which was intent on restoring those parts of Windsor that belonged to the church. ‘I knew something about office blocks, but a 14th Century Chapel. I was out of my depth! We trod carefully for about five or six years and the considerable sum of £10million was raised along the way. The Deanery, the Canons’ Cloister and the Dean’s Cloister have been restored as a result of the activities of Bray under the leadership of the Rt. Rev. David Conner, KCVO, The Dean of Windsor.’
For his support, Alan was invited by The Dean of Windsor to become a Trustee of the College of St George at Windsor. Being a Christian institution and being part of the Church of England, Alan felt he should seek advice from the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, who advised him to accept the offer without hesitation.”