Allan Maconochie, Lord Meadowbank

The HonAllan Maconochie, Lord MeadowbankFRSEFSA (Scot)(1748–1816) was a Scottishadvocate, academic jurist, judge and agriculturalist.
The only son of Alexander Maconochie of Meadowbank,Kirknewton,Midlothian, and his wife Isabella Allan, daughter of the Rev. Walter Allan, minister ofColintonin the same shire, was born on 26 January 1748. He was educated privately byAlexander Adamand at theHigh School of Edinburgh. He entered theUniversity of Edinburgh, where he attended the law classes. He was apprenticed to Thomas Tod,writer to the signet.
In 1764, Maconochie, withWilliam Creech,John Bruce,Henry Mackenzie, and two other fellow-students, founded theSpeculative Society, devoted topublic speakingandliberal thought. Having completed his university course in 1768, Maconochie went to Paris for a short time. Hepassed advocateon 8 December 1770 and was admitted as a student ofLincoln's Inn(16 April 1771), but was not called to theEnglish bar. He subsequently returned to France, where he remained till 1773.
In 1774, he was elected to thegeneral assemblyaslay representativeof the burgh ofDunfermline. Maconochie was appointed professor ofpublic lawandlaw of natureandnationsin the University of Edinburgh on 16 July 1779; and on 18 December following was elected treasurer of theFaculty of Advocates.
In 1783 he was one of the co-founders of theRoyal Society of Edinburgh. He served as the Society's Vice President 1812 to 1816.
In 1788 (until 1796) he becameSheriff-depute of Renfrewshire. He was one of the eight advocates who took an active part in procuring the rejection ofHenry Erskineas dean of the faculty in January 1796.He was then living at 5George Square, Edinburgh.
He succeededAlexander Abercrombyas an ordinaryLord of Session, and took his seat on the bench as Lord Meadowbank, on 11 March 1796. In the same year, he resigned his professorship. Maconochie was appointed aLord of Justiciaryin place ofDavid Smythe of Methvenon 4 September 1804, and was constituted one of the three lords commissioners of the newly appointed jury court on 9 May 1815. His health, however, was poor, and he took little part in the proceedings of the new court, which was opened for the first time on 22 January 1816.
He died at Coates House inDalry, Edinburghon 14 June 1816, aged 68, and was buried in the private burial-ground of his house and estate, theMeadowbank estate, in the parish ofKirknewton, where there was a monument to his memory. Maconochie was considered an able judge, but eccentric. His predilection for Latin quotation was caricatured in the ‘Diamond Beetle Case,’ attributed toGeorge Cranstoun, Lord Corehouse.
Maconochie was a keen agriculturist. He was the anonymous author of ‘Directions for Preparing Manure from Peat, and Instruction for Foresters,’ which was reprinted in 1815, Edinburgh, and again in 1842, Edinburgh. His ‘Considerations on the Introduction of Jury Trial in Civil Causes into Scotland’ was published anonymously in 1814, Edinburgh; 2nd edit. Edinburgh, 1815. His ‘Essay on the Origin and Structure of the European Legislatures’ appeared in two parts in the first volume (1788) of theTransactionsof theRoyal Society of Edinburgh, of which he was a vice-president.
He married, on 11 November 1774, Elizabeth, third daughter of Robert Welwood of Garvock and Pitliver,Fife, the granddaughter of Sir George Preston, bart., ofValleyfield. He left four sons:
Maconochie also raised his kinsman, the future penal reformerAlexander Maconochie(b1787) after Alexander's father died when he was aged nine.
He was grandfather to ProfAllan Alexander MaconochieFRSE(1806-1885).
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Barker, George Fisher Russell (1893). "Maconochie, Allan". InLee, Sidney(ed.).Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 35. London: Smith, Elder & Co.