Willie Rae

---

title: "Willie Rae" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["british-chief-constables", "knights-bachelor", "scottish-recipients-of-the-queen's-police-medal", "living-people", "year-of-birth-missing-(living-people)", "scottish-police-officers"] description: "British chief constable" topic_path: "geography/united-kingdom" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Rae" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary British chief constable ::

Sir William Rae, , is the former Chief Constable of Strathclyde Police, the largest police force in Scotland. In recognition of his achievements Rae was awarded a knighthood by the Queen, in 2005.

Career

He joined Dunbarton County Constabulary as a police cadet in 1966 and was appointed as a Constable in 1968. Dunbartonshire Constabulary merged with five other forces into what is now Strathclyde Police in 1975. Sir William was promoted to Sergeant in 1977 and rose swiftly through the ranks throughout the 1980s. In 1996, he became Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary.

In 2001, he returned to Strathclyde Police as Chief Constable. He served as the Honorary Secretary of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland. In the spring of 2007, Sir William announced that he will retire from the Force in September 2007. He played a significant part in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on Glasgow Airport in July 2007. As the public face of Scotland's police, he was widely quoted across the world. Sir Willie Rae retired in November 2007, replaced by Stephen House.

Honours

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Knight-Bachelor.ribbon.png"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Queens_Police_Medal_for_Merit.png"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/UK_Queen_Elizabeth_II_Golden_Jubilee_Medal_ribbon.svg"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Police_Long_Service_and_Good_Conduct_ribbon.png"] ::

References

category:Officers in Scottish police forces

References

1. [https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4082112.stm Police chief receives knighthood, ''BBC Scotland'']
2. [https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/6257846.stm Airport incident 'was terrorism', ''BBC Scotland'' ]

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::