BILL MCALLISTER: 150th anniversary of the day Inverness provost Dr John Mackenzie welcomed Queen Victoria to the burgh
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This is the 150th anniversary of Dr John Mackenzie, then Provost of Inverness, welcoming Queen Victoria to the burgh. This medical man was no council chamber time-server – he laboured to improve local health through his pioneering work on drains and sanitation.
Doctor John was also a proponent of scientific agriculture, a leader of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, and wrote to the Prime Minister saying the landlords’ push for Highlanders to emigrate was entirely the wrong policy.
Queen Victoria was on her way to Dunrobin Castle when Mackenzie greeted her at Inverness Station. He obviously made a good impression as she mentioned him in her Journal – and again, when passing through the following year, she referred to “the fine-looking old Provost”!
Born in 1803, John was the fourth son of Sir Hector Mackenzie of Gairloch and aged 16 he travelled to Edinburgh to study medicine.
The poverty of the capital slums made an enduring mark on him.
After qualifying, he served several years in the Army Medical Service before becoming factor of Gairloch estate, where he introduced innovative agricultural improvements. He strongly opposed the trend to replace tenants with sheep – and wrote to PM Lord John Russell, insisting:”The population of the Highlands can be supported by the soil, without being obliged to emigrate.”
Mackenzie’s proposal that crofting families should each have five acres to work was rejected as Highland landlords, thirled to evictions, carried too much weight in the corridors of power.
He moved to Inverness in 1844 with his wife Mary, an Edinburgh minister’s daughter, and built a house called Eileanach, later renamed Ballifeary House.
Ironically, when in 1861 he built a smaller home on the east side of the Ness, he felt obliged to name it Eileanach, because everyone referred to him as “Dr Mackenzie of Eileanach”.
The good doctor was alarmed to find conditions for poorer people in Inverness reminded him of the Edinburgh ghettos. He became president of Inverness Sanitary Association, a movement to better people’s health, and in 1866 conducted a survey of over 4000 people in 800 homes, primarily on the river’s west flank.
This survey showed 75 per cent of both people and homes had no toilet – inside or out. Mackenzie strongly deplored this, warning that it could lead to another epidemic of cholera, with 112 Invernessians having died in the previous outbreak in 1849.
The doctor was persuaded to become a member of Inverness Town Council in November 1866 – and was elected Provost only six months later!
He quickly came forward with plans for new drains and sanitation, although these actually faced local opposition before making progress. Mackenzie also highlighted the need to have a public park and a swimming pool as further measures towards better health.
Greater education for children was another of his passions and he was also a local pioneer in supporting votes for women.
Opposition to alcohol was another priority for this staunch Free Church member, who ensured there were fewer liquor licences granted in the town, at a time when it had a pub or off-licence for every 175 people!
At council functions he preferred to drink the toasts in what he called “the juice of the Ness”. Not too many Provosts have followed that lead…
Mackenzie and his wife had five daughters and three sons and lived to see 36 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. Sporting a blue bonnet, he wore the kilt and plaid daily, and spoke Gaelic fluently. The painting by George Reid, commissioned in his honour by the council and hanging in the Town Hall, shows a handsome old gentleman, with a smile and a full head of white hair.
Indeed, local MP and author Charles Fraser Mackintosh described him as “an ornament to the town”.
Doctor John died, aged 83, in December 1886, the reformer who charmed a Queen.
• Sponsored by Ness Castle Lodges.
