Colin and Chris Weir's £161.7 million win and the causes they backed

The EuroMillions jackpot on Tuesday 12 July 2011 went to Colin and Chris Weir, a couple from Largs in North Ayrshire. Their prize of £161,653,000 was the largest lottery win in UK history at that point, and it stayed the UK record until 2019. He had worked as a television cameraman and she as a psychiatric nurse. The win put them on the Sunday Times Rich List.

In 2013 they set up the Weir Charitable Trust, and they gave money to a community football club in their home town. Their biggest commitment was to Partick Thistle. The club's youth academy was renamed the Thistle Weir Youth Academy and a stand at Firhill was named after Colin, who became its majority shareholder in November 2019.

They also gave £1 million to the Yes campaign ahead of the 2014 independence referendum, and Colin kept giving to the SNP in later years.

The couple divorced in September 2019 after 38 years of marriage. Colin died at the end of that December, aged 71, following a short illness.

Sources

• archive.news.stv.tv (archive.news.stv.tv)
• lbc.co.uk (lbc.co.uk)
• itv.com (archived) (web.archive.org)