page_title: Keith MacLellan
section_title: Life and family
hierarchical_section_title: Keith MacLellan / Life and family
caption_attribution_description: English: Keith William MacLellan during diplomatic duties Français&#160;: Keith William MacLellan en mission diplomatique
context_page_description: Keith William MacLellan was a soldier, scholar and Canadian diplomat who helped to shape Canada's post war multi-lateral foreign policy and championed the cause of a federal, united, Canada.
context_section_description: Of Canadian pioneering stock, Keith MacLellan was born on 30 November 1920 in Aylmer, Quebec, the son of William David MacLellan and  Edith Olmsted.  He was a direct descendant of Philemon Wright, the founder of Hull, Quebec now called Gatineau.
  He grew up in Montreal and first studied at McGill University where in 1942 he helped  John Sutherland and his sister found the First Statement, a Canadian literary anthology.
  He subsequently joined the army and served during World War II as one of only two Canadians in the British Special Air Service (1st SAS), where he operated behind German lines.  It was in this period that he first met and then married on 11 September 1946, his wife, Comtesse Marie Antoinette LeGrelle, daughter of Comte Adelin Le Grelle and Rosalie de Swert, from Antwerp, Belgium; whose uncle, Comte Jacques Legrelle (aka «Jérôme»), helped to organise and run the Comet (or Comète) Line, which was Europe’s largest and most successful underground escape line during World War II; and whose niece, Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz became First Lady of France in 2007.
  Post war, he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at New College, Oxford, obtaining his MA in 1947.  In this time, he both rowed for his college and was a contemporary with political and literary figures such as Tony Wedgewood Benn and the organisers of the Oxford Manifesto of 1947.
  He subsequently returned to Canada, first working at Imperial Oil and then joining Canada's Department of External Affairs as a diplomat in 1950. It was as a Canadian diplomat that he represented his country around the world and helped to shape Canada's foreign policy in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.  He rose to the rank of ambassador before leaving in order to pursue a career in politics, first standing for parliament as a Conservative Candidate in the riding of Lasalle in 1979 and then again in 1988 in Westmount St Henri.
  Despite not being elected to Parliament, Keith MacLellan did not abandon his love of politics, but rather devoted his later years to the twin causes of Canadian/Quebec unity and Scottish/Clan MacLellan history.  He was first elected as president of the St. Andrew's Society of Montreal and later President of the St Andrew's Society of Ottawa. He was Director, Clan MacLellan of America and a convenor of the Franco-Scottish society of Québec.  In each case, he was able to use his political skills not only to weld the often warring factions into a cohesive whole, but also to instil into proceedings the higher ideal of using Scottish history within Quebec as a force for Canadian unity.
  He is survived by his four children, Dr Keith MacLellan, Dr Anne-Marie MacLellan, Janet MacLellan and Andrew MacLellan.
caption: Keith William MacLellan on a diplomatic mission
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