Colin Mackenzie of Portmore
Scottish lawyer and companion of Sir Walter Scott (1770-1830)
Colin Mackenzie of Portmore WS FRSE (1770–1830) was a Scottish lawyer and companion of Sir Walter Scott.
Life
Mackenzie was born on 11 January 1770 the son of Alexander Mackenzie of Portmore in Peebleshire and his wife Anne.
He went to school in Edinburgh and was a friend of Walter Scott, travelling with him in later life. He apprenticed as a lawyer with his father, Alexander Mackenzie WS at 14 Princes Street and qualified as a Writer to the Signet in 1790.
In 1800 he was operating as a lawyer from 14 Princes Street in Edinburgh's New Town having then taken over his father's firm.
He was Principal Clerk of Session to the Scottish Courts 1804–1808 and Deputy Keeper of the Signet 1820–1828.
In 1822 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, his proposer being James Skene of Rubislaw.
He died on 16 September 1830.
Family
His wife, Elizabeth Forbes (1781–1840), whom he married in 1803, was painted by Sir Henry Raeburn. The painting is held by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Colin Mackenzie of Portmore” is scottish lawyer and companion of Sir Walter Scott (1770-1830). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Colin, Mackenzie and Portmore, not as a finished interpretation.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q32859071. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1770, 1830, 1790 and 1800.
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This entry incorporates text from “Colin Mackenzie of Portmore” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.