George Kay

A son of David Kay, who worked for Joseph Leask's business, George was educated at the Anderson Institute, and after leaving education he apprenticed in the drapery trade in Glasgow, and upon returning to Lerwick, joined Leask's business. When Joseph died in 1882, George and his brother David bought the business and operated a grocery and drapery business on Commercial Street (where the Grand Hotel is), trading under the name Messrs D. & G. Kay. When George retired in 1925, he moved to Edinburgh and periodically visited Lerwick.

In his youth Kay was a socialist, perhaps the first in Shetland: he subscribed to William Morris's journal Commonweal in the 1880s; later in life he became a staunch Conservative.