# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mackenzie, Kenneth Douglas

​MACKENZIE, KENNETH DOUGLAS (1811–1873), colonel, born 1 Feb. 1811, was only son and eldest child of Donald Mackenzie and his wife, the daughter of T. Mylne of Mylnefield, Perthshire, and nephew of General Sir Kenneth Douglas [q. v.] On 25 Nov. 1831 he was appointed ensign in the 92nd Gordon Highlanders, in which he became lieutenant in 1836 and captain in 1844, all by purchase. He served with the regiment in the Mediterranean, West Indies, and at home. During the Irish insurrection of 1848, when he was acting as brigadier-major of the flying column under Major-general John Macdonald (d. 1869), to whom he had been adjutant in the 92nd, his courage and self-reliance brought him into notice. On the arrest of William Smith O'Brien [q. v.] at Thurles railway station on 5 Aug. 1848, Mackenzie, in order to keep the fact a secret, so as to avoid a possible attempt at a rescue or a destruction the line, contrived to stop a passenger train, in which to send O'Brien to Dublin. The engine-driver refused to comply with Mackenzie's order until Mackenzie held a pistol to his head and threatened to kill him (Ann. Reg. 1848). Mackenzie was' held to have exercised a sound discretion, which would have been a good legal defence to him if he had proceeded to put his threat into execution' (Prendergast, Law relating to Officers of the Army, p. 169). Sir George Grey [q. v.] stated in the House of Commons that Mackenzie's conduct had received the highest commendation of the commander-in-chief, the Duke of Wellington.
Mackenzie soon after received the appointment of deputy-assistant adjutant-general in Dublin, which he held until the Crimean war. He went to Turkey as brigade-major of Codrington's brigade of the light division, with which he landed in the Crimea, and was present at the Alma and Inkermann and before Sevastapol. He was made brevet-major 12 Dec. 1854, and brevet lieutenant-colonel Nov. 1855. From the beginning of 1855 to the end of the war he served first as deputy-assistant quartermaster-general, and then as an assistant adjutant-general at the headquarters before Sevastopol, and latterly as assistant quartermaster-general at Balaklava. Lord Raglan described him as 'not to be surpassed in efficiency by any officer in the army.' After the war he went back to Dublin as deputy-assistant adjutant-general. He became major in the 92nd in 1857, accompanied the regiment to India in January 1858, and served in the Central Indian campaign (medal), and was made an assistant adjutant-general in Bengal. In June 1869 he was sent to quell a mutiny in the 5th Bengal Europeans at Berhampore, a service for which he was thanked by the governor-general in council, and by the secretary of state. In 1860 he was deputy quartermaster-general and head of the department in the expedition to the north of China (C.B. and medal). He was promoted to a lieutenant-colonelcy unattached in 1861, and became brevet-colonel 1 April 1869. He was assistant adjutant-general in Dublin during the Fenian disturbances of 1865-6, and on 1 April 1870 was appointed assistant quartermaster-general at the horse guards, in which capacity he took ​a very active part in organising the first 'autumn manoeuvres,' which were held on Dartmoor in the late summer of 1873. Driving out from the camp to dinner at a country house in the neighbourhood, on Sunday, 24 Aug. 1873, Mackenzie and his brother-in-law, Captain Colomb, attempted to ford the little river Meavy, which was flooded with the recent rains, when the horse was swept off his legs, the gig upset, and the occupants with difficulty reached the bank. Mackenzie died immediately afterwards of syncope induced by exhaustion. He left a widow, daughter of Lieutenant-general G. T. Colomb, whom he married in 1861.
[Foster's Baronetage under 'Douglas of Glenbervie;' Monthly and Hart's Army Lists; Kinglake's Crimea, 6th ed. vi. 37, 58, 61, vii. 467; Wolseley's Campaign in China; Times newspaper, 26 Aug. 1873, and Lancet and Army and Navy Gazette, 30 Aug. 1873. Mackenzie was not in the first Afghan war nor one of 'Akhbar's captives,' as stated in the Broad Arrow, 30 Aug. 1873, the officer alluded to being a namesake in the Madras army.]
H. M. C.