The Baron Mackay of Clashfern, KT 1927-2026

 The Baron Mackay of Clashfern, KT, PC, who died 7 July, 2026, aged 99, was Lord Chancellor in the administrations of Margaret Thatcher and John Major.

James Peter Hymers Mackay was born 2 July, 1927, son of James Mackay and Janet Hymers.

Mackay was elected to the Faculty of Advocates in 1955. He was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1965. He was Sheriff Principal for Renfrew and Argyll from 1972 to 1974.  In 1973 he became Vice-Dean of the Faculty on Advocates and from 1976 until 1979 served as its Dean, the leader of the Scots bar.

In 1979, Mackay was appointed Lord Advocate, the senior law officer in Scotland, and was created a life peer as Baron Mackay of Clashfern, of Eddrachillis in the District of Sutherland, taking his territorial designation from his father's birthplace, a cottage beside Loch na Claise Fearna. He served as Lord High Chancellor from 1987 to 1997.

Mackay was appointed a Knight of the Thistle by Queen Elizabeth II on 27 November 1997.  In 2007, the Queen appointed him to the office of Lord Clerk Register, replacing David Charteris, 12th Earl of Wemyss. He retired from this office in November 2022, and was succeeded by Lady Elish Angiolini. He became a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1984. In 1989, he was elected honorary fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

He married Elizabeth Gunn Hymers in 1958, by whom he had a son and two daughters.

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