View source for Kenneth Muir Mackenzie, 1st Baron Muir Mackenzie

{{short description|British barrister, civil servant, and politician.}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2021}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific_prefix    = [[The Right Honourable]]
| name                = The Lord Muir Mackenzie
| honorific_suffix    = {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|GCB|PC|KC}}
| image               = Kenneth Augustus Muir-Mackenzie.jpg
| caption             = 
| order               = 
| office              = [[Lord-in-Waiting]]
| term_start          = 1924
| term_end            = 1930
| monarch             = [[George V]]
| primeminister       = [[Ramsay MacDonald]]
| office2             = [[Permanent Secretary to the Lord Chancellor's Office]]
| term_start2         = 1885
| term_end2           = 1915
| predecessor2        = ''new appointment''
| successor2          = [[Claud Schuster]]
| appointer2          = [[Roundell Palmer, 1st Earl of Selborne|Lord Selborne]]
}}
'''Kenneth Augustus Muir Mackenzie, 1st Baron Muir Mackenzie''', {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|sep=,|GCB|PC|KC}} (29 June 1845 – 22 May 1930) was a British [[barrister]], civil servant, and politician.

==Background and education==
Muir Mackenzie was a younger son of Sir John Muir Mackenzie, 2nd Baronet, and Sophia Matilda, daughter of James Raymond Johnstone, of Alva, [[Clackmannanshire]]. He was educated at [[Charterhouse School]] and [[Balliol College, Oxford]]. In 1873 he was [[Call to the bar|called to the Bar]] by [[Lincoln's Inn]].

==Career==
Muir Mackenzie was [[Clerk of the Crown in Chancery]] from 1885 to 1915 and served as Permanent Secretary to the [[Lord Chancellor]] from 1890 to 1915. He was appointed a [[Queen's Counsel]] in 1887 and a [[Bencher]] of Lincoln's Inn in 1891. He was made a [[Order of the Bath|CB]] in 1893,<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=26460 |date=21 November 1893 |page=6553}}</ref> a [[Order of the Bath|KCB]] in 1898<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=26974 |date=3 June 1898 |page=3446}}</ref> and a [[Order of the Bath|GCB]] in 1911<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=28505 |date=16 June 1911 |page=4592}}</ref> and in 1915 he was raised to the peerage as '''Baron Muir Mackenzie''', of Delvine in the County of Perth.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=29210 |date=29 June 1915 |page=6266 }}</ref> In February 1924 Muir Mackenzie, then aged 78, was appointed a [[Lord-in-waiting]] (government whip in the [[House of Lords]]) by Prime Minister [[Ramsay MacDonald]], head of the first ever [[Labour Government 1924|Labour government]], and was sworn of the [[Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council|Privy Council]] the same year.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=32910 |date=22 February 1924 |page=1549 }}</ref> He held this position until the government fell in November 1924 and again from 1929 to 1930. At the time of his death he was the oldest government minister of the twentieth century.

==Family==
Lord Muir-Mackenzie married Amelia, daughter of [[William Graham (Glasgow MP)|William Graham]], MP, in 1874. They had one son and three daughters, one of them the violinist [[Dorothea Frances Muir Mackenzie]](1881-1971), universally known as "Dolly", who studied with [[Eugène Ysaÿe]] and who in 1907 married the pianist [[Mark Hambourg]].<ref>Koch, Eric. ''Otto and Daria: A Wartime Journey Through No Man's Land'' (2016), p. 5</ref> His wife died in 1900 and his only son William in 1901, aged 25 and unmarried. Muir-Mackenzie died at his home in Cumberland Terrace, [[Regent's Park]], London, in May 1930, aged 84, and was cremated at [[Golders Green Crematorium]].<ref name=compeerage>{{cite book|title=The Complete Peerage, Volume XIII – Peerage Creations, 1901-1938|year=1949|publisher=St Catherine's Press|page=204}}</ref> As he had no surviving male issue the barony became extinct on his death.

He is buried in [[Westminster Abbey]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Kenneth Muir Mackenzie |url=https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/commemorations/kenneth-muir-mackenzie |website=Westminster Abbey |accessdate=23 February 2023}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Muir Mackenzie Baronets]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{S-start}}
{{s-gov}}
{{succession box |before=Office established |title=[[Permanent Secretary]] of the [[Lord Chancellor's Department]] |years=1885–1915|after=[[Claud Schuster|Sir Claud Schuster]]
}}
{{s-reg|uk}}
{{s-new|creation}}
{{s-ttl| title = [[Baron Muir Mackenzie]]
       | years = 1915–1930}}
{{s-non| reason = Extinct}}
{{S-end}}

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Muir Mackenzie, Kenneth}}
[[Category:1845 births]]
[[Category:1930 deaths]]
[[Category:Nobility from Perth and Kinross]]
[[Category:Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Permanent Secretaries to the Lord Chancellor's Office]]
[[Category:Younger sons of baronets]]
[[Category:Members of Lincoln's Inn]]
[[Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath]]
[[Category:Scotland men's representative footballers (1870–1872)]]
[[Category:People educated at Charterhouse School]]
[[Category:Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Wanderers F.C. players]]
[[Category:Scottish cricketers]]
[[Category:Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers]]
[[Category:Old Carthusians F.C. players]]
[[Category:Labour Party (UK) hereditary peers]]
[[Category:Men's association football players not categorized by position]]
[[Category:English men's footballers]]
[[Category:Barons created by George V]]
[[Category:Place of birth missing]]