James Mackay, Baron Mackay of Clashfern

Mackay was born in Edinburgh on 2 July 1927. He won a scholarship to George Heriot's School, and then studied mathematics and physics at the University of Edinburgh, receiving a joint MA in 1948. He taught mathematics for two years at the University of St Andrews before moving to Trinity College, Cambridge, on a scholarship, from which he obtained a BA in mathematics in 1952. He then returned to Edinburgh University where he studied law, receiving an LLB (with distinction) in 1955. ==Career==

in 1989 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. After his retirement, Mackay sat in the House of Lords. He was also Commissary to the University of Cambridge until 2016. He is the editor-in-chief of ''Halsbury's Laws of England'', the major legal work which states the law of England, first published in 1907; the post is usually held by a former Lord Chancellor. ==Family and religion==

in Bangalore by Lord Mackay of Clashfern Mackay is the son of railway signalman James Mackay (who came from Claisfearn near Tarbet in Sutherland) and his wife Janet Hymers. Mackay was raised a member of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland; as an adult he was an elder of the church. Mackay is also the Honorary President of the Scottish Bible Society. He supported the society's programme to send a Bible to every court in Scotland and wrote in support of "The Bible in Scots Law", a pamphlet it distributed to Scottish lawyers which described the Bible as a "foundational source book for Scotland's legal system". He is a strict sabbatarian, refusing to work or travel on a Sunday, or even to give an interview if there is a chance it could be rebroadcast on the sabbath. ==Honours and arms==

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 became a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1984. In 1989, he was elected honorary fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He received an honorary doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1990. He was awarded an honorary degree (Doctor of Laws) by the University of Bath in 1994 {{Infobox COA wide ==References==