Honorific-Prefix: | The Right Honourable |
Lord Moncrieff | |
Honorific-Suffix: | FRSE |
Birth Date: | 1870 8, df=y |
Death Place: | Edinburgh, Scotland |
Nationality: | Scottish |
Alma Mater: | University of Edinburgh University of Glasgow |
Children: | 3, including Margaret Moncrieff |
Relatives: | Catriona Kelly (granddaughter) |
Alexander Moncrieff, Lord Moncrieff FRSE (14 August 1870 – 5 August 1949), was a Scottish lawyer and judge, who was created a Senator of the College of Justice.
Alexander Moncrieff was the third son Alexander Moncrieff, Advocate and Sheriff of Ross and Cromarty, and Hope Margaret, née Pattison.[1]
Moncrieff studied law at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh.[2]
In 1894 Moncrieff was called to the Scottish bar and in 1912 he became a King's Counsel. At this time he was living at 11 Lynedoch Place in Edinburgh's West End.[3]
In January 1926 he was created a Senator of the College of Justice with the title of Lord Moncrieff.[4] He was the judge for the original trial in Donoghue v. Stevenson.
In 1941 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Thomas Graham Robertson, Lord Robertson, Sir Edmund Taylor Whittaker, John Alexander Inglis and Sir Ernest Wedderburn.[5]
He became Lord Justice Clerk in February 1947, succeeding Lord Cooper, but resigned later that year on the grounds of ill-health.[6] In May 1947, he became a Privy Counsellor.
He died on 5 August 1949.
In 1913, Moncrieff married a widow, Helen Spens (née McClelland Adams). They had three children: Helen Margaret Moncrieff (who went on to become well known as a cellist), Hugh, and Philip.
Moncrieff's daughter, Margaret Moncrieff, married the well-known Scottish pianist Alexander Kelly; and they had two daughters, Catriona Helen Moncrieff Kelly and Alison Mary Moncrieff Kelly. Catriona is Professor of Russian at New College, Oxford; and Alison is a cellist. Alison has two children, Alexander Davan Wetton and Camilla Davan Wetton.