Former Oxford college head Sir Alec Cairncross, 87, has died after a cycle accident.

Sir Alec, the former Master of St Peter's College, fell from his bicycle near his home at Staverton Road, Oxford.

But after undergoing surgery on his damaged hip, Sir Alec developed pneumonia and died at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital.

His daughter, Frances Cairncross, said her father had remained a great cyclist even after developing osteoporosis, brittle bone disease.

She said: "I do not believe anyone else was involved in the accident. He just left a little note saying that he had fallen off his bike."

Sir Alec, Master of St Peter's from 1969-78, came to Oxford after working as a senior adviser to Tory and Labour govern- ments.

His daughter said he had gone into hospital with a slight chest infection but it developed into pneumonia after hip replacement surgery. Sir Alec, who lived with his other daughter Ms Elizabeth Cairncross, died on October 21. Born in Lanarkshire, he rose to become head of the Government Economic Service from 1964-9, for most of Harold Wilson's years in office. He played a decisive role in Labour's historic decision to devalue the pound in 1967.

His wife Frances, to whom he was married for 55 years, died in June. At her memorial service at St Peter's last month, Sir Alec read a love letter he had penned to her 1940.

A funeral service for Sir Alec, who leaves three sons and two daughters, will be held at St Peter's on November 6, at 11am. As a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, Sir Alec shared rooms with his younger brother John. His later discovery that John had allegedly been a Soviet agent for 15 years, subsequently came as a terrible shock to this dedicated public servant.

During the war he briefly served in the economic section of the Cabinet Office and in 1951 took up a Professorship at Glasgow.

After becoming Master of St Peter's in 1969 he continued to retain influence over Government policy.

The annual Cairncross Lecture will be delivered at the college by the economist Sir Alan Budd tonight. TUESDAY.

Sir Alec leaves

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.