Archibald ‘Archie’ Louden Rennie was secretary of the Scottish Home and Health Department. He was born on 4 June 1924 in Guardbridge, Fife, the son of John Rennie, a railway signalman, and Isabella Mitchell Rennie née Louden. He attended Madras College in St Andrews and then studied physics at St Andrews University, where he was president of the students representative council. From 1944 to 1947 he served in the Royal Navy as a scientist developing mine counter measures. Following his demobilisation, he joined the Department of Health for Scotland, just as the National Health Service was being established. From 1962 to 1963 he was private secretary to the secretary of state for Scotland. He then became an assistant secretary at the Scottish Home and Health Department (from 1963 to 1969) and registrar general for Scotland (from 1969 to 1973), where he oversaw the 1971 Census. He was then under secretary at the Scottish Office from 1973. In 1977 he became secretary of the Scottish Home and Health department, a post he held until 1984. He was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1980 and became a fellow of the Faculty of Dental Surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1994. In his retirement he was a finance convener and chancellor’s assessor on the court of St Andrews University, vice chairman of the advisory committee on distinction awards for medical consultants, and chairman of the fund set up to support victims of the Lockerbie tragedy. After he retired, he moved to Elie in Fife, where he was director and then chairman of the Harbour Trust, chairman of the community council and commodore of Elie and Earlsferry Sailing Club. Outside his professional life, he was interested in language and words. In the 1950s he was an active member of the Speculative Society, founded in 1763 to improve ‘the arts of literary composition and public speaking’. Later he joined the Order of the Grey Monks of St Giles, a group of writers of light verse. He had a keen interest in contemporary art and was a member of the Scottish Arts Club. At home he enjoyed gardening, woodwork, building stone walls and sailing. In his *Who’s Who* entry he listed ‘reading, pottering, firth-watching’ as his interests. Rennie died on 16 November 2017 at the age of 93. He was survived by his wife Kathleen (née Harkess), whom he married in 1950, their four sons, nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.