Alexander Maconochie-Welwood

This article is about the Scottish judge. For the penal reformer, see Alexander Maconochie (penal reformer).

Lord Meadowbank.

Alexander Maconochie, later Maconochie-Welwood (2 March 1777 – 30 November 1861), was a Scottish judge.

The son of Allan Maconochie, Lord Meadowbank, he was admitted as an advocate in 1799. He served as Solicitor General for Scotland from 1813, and as Lord Advocate from 1816 to 1819.

In keeping with his appointment as Lord Advocate, he was Member of Parliament for Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, England, from 1817–1818, for the Kilrenny district of Anstruther Burghs from 1818 to 1819. He made his Parliamentary debut during a period of considerable unrest in both Scotland and England in 1817, choosing to mark it by announcing the existence of a seditious conspiracy of weavers in the suburbs of Glasgow. The ensuing prosecutions were spectacularly unsuccessful, however, and caused considerable embarrassment, both to the government and to Maconochie himself, who, as Lord Advocate, was directly responsible.

In part because of his rather indifferent record, especially after further embarrassment in the Court of Session in 1819, he was raised to the Scottish bench as Lord Meadowbank 1819, and resigned in 1843. With the same title as his father, he was subject of one of Scots law's better puns. When he quizzed one advocate as to the difference between 'likewise and also', he received the reply that just as his father had been Lord Meadowbank, so was he, 'also but not likewise'. He assumed the additional surname of Welwood on succeeding to his cousin's estates in 1854.

References

• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Alexander Maconochie, Lord Meadowbank

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Richard Wellesley John Leslie Foster	Member for Yarmouth 1817–1818 With: John Leslie Foster	Succeeded by John Copley John Leslie Foster
Preceded by Sir John Anstruther	Member for Anstruther Burghs 1818 – 1819	Succeeded by Sir William Rae, Bt.
Legal offices
Preceded by David Monypenny	Solicitor General for Scotland 1813 – 1816	Succeeded by James Wedderburn
Preceded by Archibald Colquhoun	Lord Advocate 1816 – 1819	Succeeded by Sir William Rae, Bt.