Alexander Maconochie, Lord Meadowbank

Who was Alexander Maconochie, Lord Meadowbank?

Alexander Maconochie, Lord Meadowbank of Garvock and Pitliver FRSE FSA, was a Scottish advocate, judge, landowner and politician. After 1854 he took the surname Maconochie-Welwood.

Alexander Maconochie was born on 2 March 1777 in West Lothian, the son of Allan Maconochie, Lord Meadowbank and Elizabeth Welwood of Garvock. He was educated at the High School, Edinburgh, and probably at Edinburgh University, and admitted as an advocate in 1799. He was admitted to the Highland Society in 1800 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1817 upon the proposal of Sir William Arburthnot, Thomas Allan, Sir David Brewster and Sir Henry Jardine. He served as a Councillor of the RSE during 1822-5 and 1835-7.

He served as Solicitor General for Scotland from 1813, and as Lord Advocate from 1816 to 1819.

In keeping with his appointment as Lord Advocate, he was Member of Parliament for Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, England, from 1817–1818, for the Kilrenny district of Anstruther Burghs from 1818 to 1819. He made his Parliamentary debut during a period of considerable unrest in both Scotland and England in 1817, choosing to mark it by announcing the existence of a seditious conspiracy of weavers in the suburbs of Glasgow. The ensuing prosecutions were spectacularly unsuccessful, however, and caused considerable embarrassment, both to the government and to Maconochie himself, who, as Lord Advocate, was directly responsible.