Compton Mackenzie | |
|---|---|
 Mackenzie in 1914 | |
| Born | (1883-01-17)17 January 1883 West Hartlepool,County Durham, England |
| Died | 30 November 1972(1972-11-30) (aged 89) Edinburgh,Midlothian, Scotland |
| Resting place | Barra, Scotland |
| Education | St Paul's School, London |
| Alma mater | Magdalen College, Oxford |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1907–1971 |
| Notable work | Whisky Galore The Monarch of the Glen |
| Spouses | |
| Father | Edward Compton |
| Relatives | Fay Compton (sister) Francis Compton (brother) Viola Compton (sister) Henry Compton (grandfather) |
Sir Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie,OBE (17 January 1883 – 30 November 1972) was a Scottish writer of fiction, biography, histories and a memoir, as well as a cultural commentator, raconteur and lifelongScottish nationalist. He was one of the co-founders in 1928 of theNational Party of Scotland along withHugh MacDiarmid,Cunninghame Graham andJohn MacCormick. He wasknighted in the1952 Birthday Honours List.
Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie was born inWest Hartlepool,County Durham, England, into a theatrical family of Mackenzies, many of whose members used Compton as their stage surname, starting with his English grandfatherHenry Compton, a well-knownShakespearean actor of theVictorian era. His father,Edward Compton Mackenzie, and mother,Virginia Frances Bateman, were actors and theatre company managers; his sister,Fay Compton (whose son wasAnthony Pelissier, Compton's nephew), starred in many ofJ. M. Barrie's plays, includingPeter Pan. He was educated atSt Paul's School, London, andMagdalen College, Oxford, from where he graduated with a degree in Modern History.[1] In 1910, he began a brief career as an actor at the Garrick theatre inThe Bishop's Son byHall Caine. From there he joined the satirical theatrical troupeThe Follies under the management of the comedian and impresarioH.G. Pélissier at the Apollo, Shaftesbury Avenue as a song lyricist and sketch writer. Within a year their relationship became estranged over the marriage of his sister Fay, aged 17, to the 37 year-old Pélissier. It was then that he took up novel writing as a full-time career bolstered by the success of his early best-sellerCarnival (1912), partly based on his experience withThe Follies.[2]
Mackenzie is perhaps best known for two comic novels set in Scotland:Whisky Galore (1947) set in theHebrides, andThe Monarch of the Glen (1941) set in theScottish Highlands. They were the sources of a successfulfilm and atelevision series respectively. He published almost a hundred books on different subjects, including ten volumes of autobiography:My Life and Times (1883–71). He wrote history (on theBattle of Marathon and theBattle of Salamis), biography (Mr Roosevelt, a 1943 biography of FDR), literary criticism, satires,apologia (Sublime Tobacco 1957), children's stories, poetry and so on. Of his fiction,The Four Winds of Love is sometimes considered hismagnum opus.[3] He was admired byF. Scott Fitzgerald, whose first book,This Side of Paradise, was written under the literary influence of Compton.[4]
Sinister Street, his lengthy 1913–14Bildungsroman, influencedGeorge Orwell andCyril Connolly, who both read it as schoolboys.[5][6]Max Beerbohm praised Mackenzie's writing for vividness and emotional reality.[7]Frank Swinnerton, a literary critic, comments on Mackenzie's "detail and wealth of reference". SirJohn Betjeman said of it, "This has always seemed to me one of the best novels of the best period in English novel writing."Henry James thought it to be the most remarkable book written by a young author in his lifetime. After his conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1914, Mackenzie explored religious themes in a trilogy of novels,The Altar Steps (1922),The Parson's Progress (1923) andThe Heavenly Ladder (1924).[8]
In 1922,Robin Legge,chief music critic ofThe Daily Telegraph, encouraged Mackenzie to write some of the earliest gramophone record reviews.[9] In 1923 he and his brother-in-lawChristopher Stone foundedGramophone, the still-influentialclassical music magazine.[10] Mackenzie continued to edit the magazine until 1961. He was also the literary critic for the London-based national newspaperDaily Mail.[11]
Following his time onCapri, socialising with the gay exiles there, he treated the homosexuality of a politician sensitively inThin Ice (1956).The Lunatic Republic (1959) is a political satire. For the version of English spoken by the inhabitants of Lunamania on the far side of the Moon, Mackenzie invented over 150 new words.[citation needed]
Mackenzie worked as an actor, political activist and broadcaster. He served withBritish Intelligence in theEastern Mediterranean during theFirst World War, later publishing four books on his experiences. According to these books, he was commissioned in theRoyal Marines, rising to the rank of captain. His ill-health making front-line service impractical, he was assigned counter-espionage work during theGallipoli campaign,[12] and in 1916 built up a considerable counter-intelligence network in Athens, Greece then being neutral.[13] He is alleged to have taken part in an attempt to assassinate the King by poison in August 1916, during which the royal palace was to be surrounded by fire to prevent him escaping.[14] While his secret service work seems to have been valued highly by his superiors, including SirMansfield Smith-Cumming, his passionate political views, especially his support for theVenizelists, made him a controversial figure and he was expelled fromAthens following theNoemvriana.[15]
In 1917, he founded the Aegean Intelligence Service, and enjoyed considerable autonomy for some months as its director. He was offered the Presidency of the Republic ofCerigo, which was briefly independent while Greece was split between Royalists andVenizelists, but declined the office. He was recalled in September 1917. Smith-Cumming considered appointing him as his deputy, but withdrew the suggestion after opposition from within his own service, and Mackenzie played no further active role in the war. In 1919, he was appointed an Officer of theOrder of the British Empire (OBE), and was also honoured with the FrenchLegion of Honour, theSerbianOrder of the White Eagle, and the GreekOrder of the Redeemer.[16]
After the publication of hisGreek Memories in 1932, he was prosecuted the following year at the Old Bailey under theOfficial Secrets Act for quoting from supposedly secret documents. His account of the trial, vividly described, is in Octave Seven (1931–38) of his autobiography: the result was a fine of £100 and (prosecution) costs of £100. His own costs were over £1,000. Mackenzie states that a plea-bargain (described in the text as "an arrangement") had been reached with the judge prior to the trial: in exchange for his pleading guilty, he would be fined £500 with £500 costs. HoweverSir Thomas Inskip, then attorney general who prosecuted the case, succeeded in annoying the trial judge to such an extent that he then reduced the penalties to a token amount. Even so, the costs of his defence and the withdrawal from sale ofGreek Memories left Mackenzie out of pocket and an attempt was made to ask the authorities exactly which passages in the book they objected to so it could be re-issued with the offending material removed. This approach was rebuffed.[17] In Octave Eight, covering the years 1939–45, Mackenzie recounts that the matter was raised in Parliament and a new version ofGreek Memories was eventually published in 1939.[18]However, in spite of the withdrawal of the 1st edition a copy had already been deposited at the British Museum[19] (which then contained what is now the independent British Library) but was not given a general catalogue reference making it effectively impossible to access. In 1994The Guardian newspaper published an article about this anomalyThe muzzling of Compton Mackenzie – 62 years on.[20] Following this the 1932 edition was entered in the British Library's public catalogue.[21] In 2011 Biteback published the original 1932 edition ofGreek Memories, including theSecret Intelligence Service memo detailing the offending passages of the book.[22]
He was president of theCroquet Association from 1953 to 1966. He was president of the Siamese Cat Club.[23] He was the subject ofThis Is Your Life in 1956 when he was surprised byEamonn Andrews at theKing's Theatre,Hammersmith, London.[citation needed]
A strong supporter ofEdward VIII, Mackenzie was a leading member of the Octavians, a minor society that campaigned in support of Edward VIII and for his return to the UK after he became the Duke of Windsor.[24] According to a 1938Time article Mackenzie had intended to write a book in support of Edward but abandoned the plan when the Duke asked him not to publish.[25]
Between 1913 and 1920 he lived with his wife,Faith, onCapri atVilla Solitaria, and returned to visit in later years. This Italian island nearSorrento was known to be tolerant not just of foreigners in general, but of artists and homosexuals in particular. He became friends with the writerSomerset Maugham, a frequent visitor to the island. Faith had an affair with the Italian pianistRenata Borgatti,[26] who was connected toRomaine Brooks.
Compton Mackenzie's observations on the local life of the Italian islanders and foreign residents led to at least two novels,Vestal Fire (1927) andExtraordinary Women (1928). The latter, aroman à clef about a group of lesbians arriving on the island of Sirene, a fictional version of Capri,[27][28] was published in Britain in the same year as two other ground-breaking novels with lesbian themes,Virginia Woolf's love letter toVita Sackville-West,Orlando, andRadclyffe Hall's controversial polemic,The Well of Loneliness, but Mackenzie's satire did not attract legal attention.[29] He was a friend ofAxel Munthe, who builtVilla San Michele, andEdwin Cerio, who later became mayor of Capri.[30]
Jun2001.jpg)
Mackenzie went to great lengths to trace the steps of his ancestors back to his spiritual home in the Highlands, and displayed a deep and tenacious attachment toGaelic culture throughout his long and very colourful life. As his biographer,Andro Linklater, commented, "Mackenzie wasn't born a Scot, and he didn't sound like a Scot. But nevertheless his imagination was truly Scottish." He was an ardentJacobite, the third Governor-General of theRoyal Stuart Society, and a co-founder of theNational Party of Scotland. He became a member of the Scottish Arts Club in 1929.[31] He was rector ofUniversity of Glasgow from 1931 to 1934, defeatingOswald Mosley, who later led theBritish Union of Fascists, in his bid for the job.[32]
From 1920 to 1923 Mackenzie was theTenant of Herm andJethou. He built a house onBarra, in the Western Isles (Outer Hebrides) of Scotland, in the 1930s. On Barra, he gained inspiration and found creative solitude, and befriended a great number of people that he described as "the aristocrats of democracy".[citation needed]
He was a founding member of the short-lived secret organisationClann Albain.[33]
Mackenzie was married three times. On 30 November 1905 (aged 22), he marriedFaith Stone inSt Saviour's, Pimlico: they remained married for more than 50 years, until her death.[34] In 1962 (aged 79), he married Christina MacSween, who died the following year. Lastly, he married hisdeceased wife's sister, Lilian MacSween in 1965 (aged 82).[35] (died 2009)
Mackenzie was a supporter ofWest Bromwich Albion F.C. Although from the north east of England, he "was influenced in the choice of Albion as 'my' team by the fact that their ground was romantically called The Hawthorns and that they were nicknamed the Throstles".[36]
He was also a fan ofsnooker, and gave an account of the origin of the game's name inThe Billiard Player magazine of 1939, describing how a young lieutenant namedNeville Chamberlain (not the former British Prime Minister) had been experimenting on the officers' mess table with the existing game of "Black Pool" featuring 15 red balls and a black.[37][38] He presented the World Championship trophy toJoe Davis at the1939 Championships.[39]
After his retirement, Mackenzie sold the entire copyright in 20 of his books for a lump sum of £10,000 arguing that this was a capital receipt and not the proceeds of the business. The Court of Appeal held that this was assessable income as part of the proceeds of his business: Mackenzie v Arnold (1952) 33 TC 363.[40]
In 1964 Mackenzie joined theWho Killed Kennedy Committee? set up byBertrand Russell.[41]
Mackenzie died on 30 November 1972, aged 89, in Edinburgh and was interred in St Barr's churchyard cemetery at Eoligarry on the Isle of Barra.
A list based on Kenneth Young'sCompton Mackenzie, 1968:[42]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1949 | Whisky Galore! | Captain Buncher | Film debut |
| 1950 | Chance of a Lifetime | Sir Robert Dysart | Final film |
| 1966 | Jackanory | Storyteller |
Works related toCompton Mackenzie at Wikisource
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Rector of the University of Glasgow 1931—1934 | Succeeded by |
