The Lord Reay
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry
In office
22 May 1991  14 April 1992
Prime MinisterJohn Major
Preceded byPost vacant
Succeeded byThe Baroness Denton of Wakefield
Lord-in-waiting
Government Whip
In office
24 July 1989  21 May 1991
Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher
Preceded byThe Earl of Arran
Succeeded byThe Earl Howe
Member of the European Parliament
In office
1 January 1973  16 July 1979
ConstituencyAppointed by Parliament
Member of the House of Lords
as a hereditary peer
9 August 1964  11 November 1999
Preceded byThe 13th Lord Reay
Succeeded bySeat abolished
as an elected hereditary peer
11 November 1999  10 May 2013
Election1999
Preceded bySeat established
Succeeded byThe 5th Baron Borwick
Personal details
Born
Hugh William Mackay

(1937-07-19)19 July 1937
Died10 May 2013(2013-05-10) (aged 75)
Political partyCrossbencher (1963–1966);
Liberal (1966–1971);
Crossbencher (1971–1972);
Conservative (1972–2013)
RelationsSee Clan Mackay
Alma materEton College
Christ Church, Oxford

Hugh William Mackay, 14th Lord Reay, Baron Mackay (19 July 1937 – 10 May 2013), was a British politician and Conservative member of the House of Lords. He was the only male Lord of Parliament to sit in the House of Lords following the abolition of the automatic right of all British hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords in 1999, the only female being The Lady Saltoun.

Biography

Lord Reay was the only son of Aeneas Alexander Mackay, 13th Lord Reay. He was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford.

He succeeded to the title upon his father's death in 1963, sitting in the House of Lords first as a cross-bencher, then as a Liberal, and finally, from 1972, as a Conservative. He championed causes from the abolition of capital punishment to restrictions on onshore wind farms.[1]

He sat as an appointed Member of the European Parliament from 1973 until the first elections in 1979. He also served as a delegate to the Council of Europe, living at the family's Dutch estates in Ophemert.

He subsequently was appointed as a House of Lords whip in 1989 by Margaret Thatcher. In 1991, he was moved by her successor, John Major, to the Department of Trade and Industry as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, but he left the government at the 1992 general election.[2]

With the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999, Lord Reay along with almost all other hereditary peers lost his automatic right to sit in the House of Lords, however, he was one of the 92 elected hereditary peers to remain in the House of Lords pending completion of House of Lords reform.

Lord Reay was the hereditary Clan Chief of Clan Mackay, and Lord of Ophemert and Zennewijnen in the Netherlands.[3]

Family

Lord Reay was married twice. With his first wife Tessa Keswick, (née the Honourable Annabel Terese Fraser), a daughter of Lord Lovat (she then became wife of Henry Keswick), he had two sons and one daughter. With his second wife Victoria Isabella, youngest daughter of the late 1st Baron Bruntisfield, he had two daughters.

He was succeeded by his elder son, Aeneas Mackay, Master of Reay (born 20 March 1965), a banker, who married, on 14 January 2010, Mia Ruulio, elder daughter of Markus Ruulio of Helsinki. His heir is his son, the Honourable Alexander Shimi Markus Mackay (born 21 April 2010).[4]

References

  1. "Clan Chiefs". Clan Mackay Society.
  2. "Lord Reay – Obituary". The Daily Telegraph. London.
  3. "Clan Chiefs". Clan Mackay Society.
  4. "Birth Announcement in The Telegraph". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 27 March 2012. Retrieved 22 August 2011.
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