The Famous Faces of Clan MacLeod

Anna MacGillivray MacLeod was a Scottish biochemist and academic, as well as a leading authority on brewing and distilling. She was born in Kirkhill in the Scottish Highlands on the 15th of May 1917 to Margret Ingram Sangster and Rev. Alasdair MacGillivray MacLeod. Her family lineage can be traced back to the Isle of Lewis, home to Clan MacLeod, where her grandfather, Rev. George MacLeod was the Minister of Garrabost.

Anna was educated at Invergordon Academy and Edinburgh Ladies College and graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a BSc with Honours in Botany. She joined the faculty of Heriot-Watt University in 1945, where she remained until her retirement in 1977. She returned to thee the University of Edinburgh in 1951 to study for her PhD which she was awarded in the late 1960s for a thesis on the germination of barley.

In 1961, together with Leslie Samuel Cobley, MacLeod co-edited "Contemporary Botanical Thought", published by Oliver and Boyd. She also edited the "Journal of the Institute of Brewing" from 1964-1976 and she was the first female president of the organisation, now the Institute of Brewing and Distilling, from 1970-1972. In 1975, MacLeod was appointed Professor of Brewing at Heriot-Watt University, becoming the first female professor of Brewing and Biochemistry. MacLeod was awarded the Horace Brown medal in 1976 and retired as Professor Emeritus in 1977.

Heriot-Watt University awarded her an honorary Doctor of Science in 1993 for her discovery of gibberellic acid, which shortened the malting process. MacLeod was recognised nationally and internationally with distinction as a university teacher, scholar, scientist, technologist and brewer.

Anna MacLeod died at St Raphaels, Edinburgh on the 13th of August 2004. Heriot-Watt University's Edinburgh Campus has a residence hall named in her honour and the university's Brewing and Distilling Department started the Anna MacLeod Scholarship, with the financial gift she left the university in her will.

Iain Norman MacLeod was a British Conservative Party politician and government minister. MacLeod was born at Clifford House, Skipton, Yorkshire. He was the second cousin of Anna MacGillivray MacLeod and his family moved from the Isle of Lewis to Skipton in 1907. MacLeod grew up with strong personal and cultural ties to Scotland, and the family often spent time on holiday on the Isle of Lewis.

MacLeod was educated at Ermysted's Grammar School in Skipton, followed by four years at St Ninian's in Dumfriesshire and five years at Edinburgh's Fettes College. Following his time at Fettes College, he went on to study History at Gonville and Caius College at the University of Cambridge. Here he spent much of his time reading poetry and playing bridge, both for the university and at Crockfords in London's West End. He graduated with a Lower Second in 1935 and by 1936 was an international bridge player. MacLeod was one of the great British bridge players and won the Gold Cup in 1937.

During the war, MacLeod fought in Europe where his leg was injured when a German armoured car crashed through a roadblock that his men had just erected. This resulted in him having a permanent limp.

Following the war, MacLeod joined the Conservative political party. As an outstanding orator and debater, he was soon appointed Minister of Health, later serving as Minister of Labour. MacLeod also served an important term as Secretary of State for the colonies under Harold MacMillan in the early 1960s, overseeing the independence of several African countries from British rule.

MacLeod was unhappy with the emergence of Sir Alec Douglas-Home as the party leader and Prime Minister and refused to serve in his government. He did not contest the first-ever Conservative Party leadership election in 1965 but endorsed the eventual winner Edward Heath. When the Conservatives returned to power in June 1970, he was appointed as Chancellor of the Exchequer. However, he sadly passed away suddenly only a month later.

MacLeod is buried in the churchyard of Gargrave Church in North Yorkshire, near his mother who had died seven weeks earlier.

Dave MacLeod was born in Glasgow on the 17th of June 1978. He is a Scottish rock climber best known for being the first climber to scale an 8c route, free solo (without ropes), and for climbing one of the hardest traditional climbing routes in Scotland, Rhapsody, on Dumbarton Rock, graded E11 7a. This climb was possibly the hardest traditional climbing route in the world. MacLeod had many falls when trying to complete this route, one of which he fell 70 feet and injured himself hitting the wall at the end of his fall. This ascent was captured in the film E11.

In 2005 MacLeod established the hardest traditional mixed climbing route in the world at the time, The Hurting in Coire an t-Sneachda, Cairngorms. The route has been repeated a few times and has a Scottish winter grade of XI,11.

Echo Wall, an extreme and as yey ungraded climb on Ben Nevis, was completed by MacLeod in 2008 after two years of preparation. MacLeod described the climb as being harder than Rhapsody but left the route ungraded to avoid controversy.

MacLeod published his first book '9 Out Of 10 Climbers Make the Same Mistakes: Navigation Through the Maze Of Advice For the Self-Coached Climber' in December 2009. On the 28th of August 2010, MacLeod and Tim Emmett established the route the Usual Suspects on Sron Uladail. This ascent was broadcast live on BBC Two Scotland. As part of their preparation, the pair successfully established five new routes on five Hebridean islands in five days. This was documented in the BBC Scotland series, '5 Climbs, 5 Islands'.

MacLeod has continued his association with the BBC Scotland, filming 'The First Great Climb', in which he replicated a successful 1876 attempt on the Stack of Handa using the equipment that would have been available at the time. He holds an undergraduate degree in Sports Science and Physiology, an MSc in Sport and Exercise Science from the University of Glasgow, where he is currently undertaking an MSc in Human Nutrition. When not climbing, Dave spends his time studying and writing about sports science and nutrition, or spending time with his wife Claire and daughter Frieda.

Sarah Yvette McLeod was born on the 1st of February 1973 in Adelaide, Australia. She is an Australian singer-songwriter and the frontwoman of the rock band The Superjesus. The group won two ARIA Music Awards and they shipped over 300,000 units during their career. McLeod grew up in Adelaide where she attended St Peter's Collegiate Girls' School and began singing in her late teens.

In 1990 she commenced a Bachelor of Arts at Flinders University in Adelaide. Three months into the course, McLeod went on holiday to Bali, where she was invited to join a Balinese band. She joined the band on stage every night of her stay and enjoyed performing live on stage. On her return to Adelaide, she quit university to pursue her new love of performing and formed her first group, Fall Down Monster.

During her time with the band, she displayed her rock-chick character and honed her vocal and guitar skills, alongside her fun-loving, energetic stage presence. Fall Down Monster performed indie band covers and McLeod wrote original tracks that were not recorded.

Late in 1994, McLeod joined Chris Tennent to form the indie guitar rock band, Hell's Kitchen, which later became The Superjesus. In May 1996, the group released their first debut four-track EP, Eight Step Rail. At the ARIA Music Awards of 1997, The Superjesus won Best New Talent and Breakthrough Artist. The band went on to release three albums before splitting up in 2004.

McLeod launched her solo career in 2005, with her first album 'Beauty Was A Tiger' which peaked at number 31 on the ARIA Albums Chart. A remix of her son 'He Doesn't Love You' reached number 1 on the ARIA Club Charts, and gained airplay in the UK and US.

The Superjesus reformed in 2012 and played an Australian tour. The band released their first single in 12 years in 2015 with the track ‘The Setting Sun’ followed by the Love and Violence EP in 2016.

Alistair MacLeod was a Canadian novelist, short story writer, and academic. His powerful and moving stories vividly evoke the beauty of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, and it's rugged landscape. MacLeod's Scottish ancestors came from the Isle of Eigg and established a farm in Dunvegan, Inverness County. Both of his parent's first language was Gaelic.

MacLeod was born on the 20th of July, 1936, in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. The family returned to Dunvegan when Macleod was the age of 10, moving into the farmhouse his great-grandfather had built in the 1860s.

MacLeod enjoyed school and performed particularly well in English. After graduating from high school in 1954, MacLeod moved to Edmonton where he delivered milk from a horse-drawn wagon. He furthered his education by attending the Nova Scotia Teachers College in Truro and then taught at a school for a year on Port Hood Island off Cape Breton's west coast. To fund his university education, he worked summers drilling and blasting mines in British Columbia and the uranium mines of northern Ontario. At some point, he also worked at a logging camp on Vancouver Island rising rapidly through the ranks because he was physically able to climb the tallest trees and rig cables to their tops.

Between 1957 and 1960, MacLeod studied at St. Francis Xavier University earning a BA and a B.Ed. He then went on to receive his MA in 1961 from the University of Brunswick, before achieving his PhD from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana in 1968.

MacLeod continued to work in academia, lecturing at several different universities. Although he enjoyed the work, he struggled to find time to write creatively. This resulted in MacLeod doing most of his writing during summer breaks at his family home in Dunvegan. It is said that he would spend his mornings there "writing in a clifftop cabin, looking west towards Prince Edward Island".

In his lifetime, MacLeod published only one novel and fewer than 20 short stories. Although he was known as the master of the short story, MacLeod's 1999 novel, 'No Great Mischief' was voted Atlantic Canada's greatest book of all time. The novel also won several literary prizes including the 2001 International Dublin Literary Award.

MacLeod died on April 20th 2014 after suffering a stroke in January 2014 at the age of 77. His funeral was held in the St. Margret of Scotland Catholic Church in Broad Cove, Cape Breton, near his home in Dunvegan. He was laid to rest in the nearby graveyard where generations of MacLeods are buried.

Well there you have it, you MacLeods are a very talented bunch! Was there anyone we missed? Be sure to check back next week when we will be speaking with the Clan MacLeod Society of Scotland to discuss all things heritage, history and modern day. We look forward to seeing you then.