sular jurisdiction and customs organization, and brought the whole territory under ordered government. During the period of his consul-generalship he took part in the Brass River expedition (1895).
In 1896 Macdonald retired from the army and was promoted to the post of British minister at Peking, where his term of office covered four critical years in the history of China. The Chino-Japanese War of 1894 had revealed to the world the military weakness of China, and German and Russian imperialism lost no time in exploiting the situation. The concession to Russia in 1896 of the Chinese Eastern Railway was followed in 1898 by the seizure of Kiaochow by Germany and the Russian occupation of Port Arthur and Dalny. In order to maintain the balance of power, Macdonald secured for England the leases of Wei Hai Wei and of the Hong-Kong Extension, and waged the ‘battle of concessions’ so successfully that he obtained, among other things, the opening of the West river to trade, the right to navigate the inland waters, the non-alienation of the Yangtze region, several important railway concessions, and a formal undertaking that the inspector-general of customs should continue to be an Englishman. These services brought him the congratulations of Lord Salisbury and the K.C.B. in 1898.
It was fortunate that Macdonald was at Peking when the Boxer rising of 1900 occurred. He was chosen by his colleagues to assume the command of the beleaguered legations, and he organized the defence with such skill that they were able through many weeks (20 June–14 August) to withstand all Chinese assaults. Promoted G.C.M.G. in 1900, he received in 1901 the military K.C.B. for the defence of the legations, and thus had the rare distinction of being doubly a recipient of this order.
In October 1900 Macdonald was transferred to Tokio, where he became in 1905 the first British ambassador. He took part in the negotiation of the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902, and his presence at Tokio was invaluable to Great Britain during the Russo-Japanese War. The Anglo-Japanese agreement of August 1905 (renewed in July 1911) was concluded under his auspices, and in recognition of his services he was made G.C.V.O. and sworn a privy councillor in 1906. He retired in 1912, and died in London 10 September 1915.
Macdonald married in 1892 Ethel, daughter of Major W. Cairns Armstrong, of the 15th regiment, and widow of P. Craigie Robertson, of the Indian civil service. They had two daughters.
[The Times, 11 September 1915; Lieut.-Colonel A. F. Mockler-Ferryman, Up the Niger. A Narrative of Major Claude Macdonald's Mission to the Niger and Benue Rivers, 1892; China Blue Books, 1898–1899; Who's Who in the Far East; personal knowledge.]
MACDONALD, Sir JOHN HAY ATHOLE, Lord Kingsburgh (1836–1919), lord justice-clerk of Scotland, was born at 29 Great King Street, Edinburgh, 28 December 1836, the second son of Matthew Norman Macdonald (who subsequently adopted the additional surname of Hume), writer to the signet, by his second wife, Grace, daughter of Sir John Hay, fifth baronet, of Smithfield and Haystoun, Peeblesshire. He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy and the universities of Basle and Edinburgh, and was called to the Scottish bar in 1859. In the course of a professional career distinguished by practical ability rather than by profound legal learning, he became successively sheriff of Ross, Cromarty, and Sutherland (1874–1876), solicitor-general for Scotland (1876–1880), Queen's counsel (1880), sheriff of Perthshire (1880–1885), dean of the faculty of advocates (1882–1885), and lord advocate (1885–1886 and 1886–1888). In 1888 he was promoted to the bench as lord justice-clerk in succession to the first Baron Moncreiff [q.v.], and assumed the judicial title of Lord Kingsburgh, derived from the lands of that name in Skye with which his Highland ancestors (one of whom was the Jacobite heroine, Flora Macdonald) had been associated. In this capacity he presided for twenty-seven years over the second division of the Court of Session. He retired in 1915.
As a counsel, Macdonald found his most congenial sphere in jury trials, and on the bench he was at his best on questions of fact. His judgments are characterized by directness and robust common sense. From the outset he specialized in criminal law. In his early years at the bar he produced his Practical Treatise on the Criminal Law of Scotland (first edition 1867), and his tenure of the office of lord advocate was appropriately marked by the passing of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1887, which effected a great simplification of proceedings in criminal cases. As lord justice-clerk he conducted with conspicuous ability a long series of criminal trials, including the notorious Monson case (1893).
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