The Rt. Hon. Lord Mackay of Clashfern
Patron
James Peter Hymers Mackay, Baron Mackay of Clashfern, KT, PC, served as the Lord Advocate of Scotland from 1979 to 1984 and as Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain from 1987 to 1997.
Born in Edinburgh, Lord Mackay was educated at George Heriot‘s School, the University of Edinburgh and Cambridge University where he undertook degrees in mathematics and then did postgraduate study in that subject. For a time during the 1950s he taught mathematics at St Andrews University before returning to Edinburgh to read law. He was elected to the Faculty of Advocates in 1955 and was appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 1965. He was subsequently Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, the leader of the Scots bar.
In 1979, Mackay was appointed Lord Advocate, the senior law officer in Scotland, and was created a life peer as Baron Mackay of Clashfern, of Eddrachillis in the District of Sutherland, taking his territorial designation from his father’s birthplace: Clashfern in Sutherland.
One of the outstanding lawyers of the 20th century, Mackay took an appointment as a judge of the Court of Session in 1984, and was promoted to the appellate committee of the House of Lords in 1985 when Lord Fraser stepped down.
In 1987, Margaret Thatcher made Mackay Lord Chancellor. Mackay read the Cabinet‘s tribute to Thatcher at her last Cabinet meeting on her resignation as prime minister in 1990. Reappointed Lord Chancellor by Thatcher’s successor John Major, when the 1997 general election was called Mackay told Major that he would retire at the election. In the event, the Conservatives lost power at that election. By the time of his retirement, Mackay had become one of the longest serving Lord Chancellors. He was appointed a Knight of the Thistle by the Queen in 1999.
