| Honorific Prefix: | The Right Honourable |
| The Baron Seaforth | |
| Birth Date: | 9 June 1754 |
| Death Date: | 11 January 1815 |
| Allegiance: | United Kingdom |
| Branch: | British Army |
| Rank: | Lieutenant-general |
| Battles: | French Revolutionary Wars |
Lieutenant-General Francis Humberston Mackenzie, 1st Baron Seaforth, (9 June 1754 – 11 January 1815) was a British politician, soldier, and botanist. He was Chief of the Highland Clan Mackenzie, as which he raised the renowned 78th (Highlanders) Regiment of Foot.
Mackenzie was the second son of Major William Mackenzie (d. 12 March 1770), who was the son of the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, and the grandson of Kenneth Mackenzie, 4th Earl of Seaforth. Francis's mother was Mary, the daughter and heiress of Matthew Humberston of Humberston, Lincolnshire.
On the death of his elder brother Colonel Thomas Frederick Mackenzie Humberston in 1783, Francis Mackenzie became the last male heir of the attainted Earls of Seaforth.[1] When he was about twelve years of age, Francis contracted scarlet fever, which incurred the loss of his ability to hear and almost all of his ability to speak. As a consequence, he was known as MacCoinnich Bodhar (Deaf Mackenzie in Gaelic).[2]
From 1784 to 1790, and again from 1794 to 1796, Seaforth was Member of Parliament for the County of Ross.
In 1787, he proposed raising a regiment on his own estates, with himself as commander. The government declined his patriotic offer but accepted his services in procuring recruits for the 74th and 75th. On 19 May, 1790, he renewed his offer, yet the government declined his services again. When war broke out in 1793, he offered for a third time, and a letter of service was granted in his favour dated 7 March, 1793, empowering him as Lieutenant-Colonel-Commandant to raise a Highland Battalion to be called the 78th (Highlanders) Regiment of Foot.[2]
He was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ross-shire and was raised to the peerage of Great Britain as Lord Seaforth, Baron Mackenzie of Kintail in the County of Ross on 26 October, 1797. In 1798, he was appointed Colonel of the Ross-shire Regiment of Militia.
Seaforth served as Governor of Barbados from 1800 to 1806. During his tenure he reformed slavery on the island, implemented a prohibition on killing slaves, and reduced official discrimination against free blacks.[2] As Governor of Barbados, Seaforth appointed Thomas Moody, a mathematical expert from a prominent British family,[3] [4] to a direct commission in the Royal Engineers,[5] which Moody entered as a lieutenant in 1806.[3] Seaforth attained the rank of lieutenant-general in 1808.[2]
In 1794, Seaforth was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for his contributions to botany, with the genus Seaforthia named in recognition of his work. A year later, In 1795, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, again in acknowledgement of his contributions to botany: his proposers were Daniel Rutherford, Alexander Monro (secundus), and John Playfair. He was also a Fellow of the Linnean Society, and served as Extraordinary Director of the Highland Society.[6]
In 1796, Mackenzie gave £1,000 to Sir Thomas Lawrence to assist with Lawrence's financial difficulties. Lawrence later painted a full-length portrait of Seaforth's daughter, Mary.
Lord Seaforth commissioned Benjamin West's painting "King Alexander III of Scotland being rescued from the fury of a stag by the intrepidity of Colin Fitzgerald".[7]
Walter Scott said of him:
Seaforth nearly recovered entirely the use of his tongue, but during the last two years of his life, which he spent mourning the deaths of his four sons, he rarely spoke.[2]
In 1782, Mackenzie entered matrimony with Mary Proby, the daughter of The Very Rev Baptist Proby, who served as the 7th Dean of Lichfield and Mary Russel. Mary was the niece of John Proby, 1st Baron Carysfort and sister of Rev. Charles Proby.
Francis's four legitimate sons all predeceased him as predicted by the Brahan Seer. His children were:
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