Compton Mackenzie - Scottish Identity

Scottish Identity

Mackenzie went to great lengths to trace the steps of his ancestors back to his spiritual home in the Highlands, and displayed a deep and tenacious attachment to Gaelic culture throughout his long and very colourful life. As his biographer, Andro Linklater, commented, "Mackenzie wasn't born a Scot, and he didn't sound like a Scot. But nevertheless his imagination was truly Scottish."

He was an ardent Jacobite, the third Governor-General of the Royal Stuart Society, and a co-founder of the Scottish National Party. He was rector of University of Glasgow from 1931 to 1934, defeating Oswald Mosley, who later led the British Union of Fascists, in his bid for the job.

Mackenzie was from 1920–1923 Tenant of Herm and Jethou. He shares many similarities to the central character in D. H. Lawrence's short story "The Man Who Loved Islands", despite Lawrence saying "the man is no more he than I am." Mackenzie at first asked Martin Secker, who published both authors, not to print the story, and it was left out of one collection.

Mackenzie built a house on the island of Barra in the 1930s. It was on Barra that he gained much inspiration and found creative solitude, and where he befriended a great number of people that he described as "the aristocrats of democracy". One such friend was John MacPherson, known as "The Coddy". MacPherson's son, Neil, recalled Mackenzie as a man of huge imagination, generosity, and talent.

He died in Edinburgh. Such was his love of the Scottish Highlands that he is buried in Barra.