Kenneth Muir Mackenzie, 1st Baron Muir Mackenzie
British Baron and politician (1845-1930)
Kenneth Augustus Muir Mackenzie, 1st Baron Muir Mackenzie, (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 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 CB in 1893, a KCB in 1898 and a GCB in 1911 and in 1915 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Muir Mackenzie, of Delvine in the County of Perth. 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, and was sworn of the Privy Council the same year. 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.
The public source identifies “Kenneth Muir Mackenzie, 1st Baron Muir Mackenzie” as british Baron and politician (1845-1930). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Kenneth, Muir and Mackenzie.
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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 Apr 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6390508. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1845, 1930, 1873 and 1885.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kenneth Muir Mackenzie, 1st Baron Muir Mackenzie” 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.