Hugh Macmillan, Baron Macmillan

Who was Hugh Macmillan, Baron Macmillan?

Hugh Pattison Macmillan, Baron Macmillan GCVO PC was a Scottish judge.

The son of the Revd Hugh Macmillan, he was educated at Collegiate School, Greenock, at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow. He was admitted as an advocate in 1897, becoming King's Counsel in 1912.

When the Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald was elected in 1924 - the first time the Labour Party had taken power - it had no KCs in Scotland amongst its Parliamentary representation. Macdonald therefore turned to Macmillan, whose reputation at the Bar was considerable, to take the job of Lord Advocate, even though he was a Conservative. He served as Lord Advocate from February to November 1924.

Macmillan was standing counsel for the Dominion of Canada from 1928, and for the Commonwealth of Australia from 1929.

In 1930, he was appointed a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and additionally created a life peer as Baron Macmillan of Aberfeldy in the County of Perthshire, one of few men to have been appointed a judge in the House of Lords straight from the Bar. Macmillan sat as a Law Lord until 1947 except for a brief period at the outbreak of World War II when he was Minister of Information. However he came in for much criticism in this role and was soon replaced. The Ministry of Information was located in the Senate House, University of London, and the Macmillan Hall there is named after him.