51549: Allan Mackenzie, Reverend

Rev Allan Mackenzie was inducted as Church of Scotland minister at Baile na Cille in Uig on 7 February 1909. During his time the communion season was twice postponed because of epidemics in the district: in October 1908 it was measles in Valtos, and in November 1918 it was influenza. It was during Rev Mackenzie’s time at Baile na Cille that the kirk session welcomed the union of the United Free Church and the Church of Scotland. The actual union was postponed until after the war. Rev Mackenzie also gave detailed evidence to the 1912 Dewar Commission on the state of medical services in the Highlands and Islands.

Rev Mackenzie was a son of Alexander Mackenzie, sugar planter, and his wife Margaret Mackenzie. Allan was married twice. His son by his first wife was Rev John F Mackenzie, minister at St Columba’s Church in Stornoway from 1924 to 1929. He married his second wife, Kate Macleod, in Portree in 1916 and had two sons, one of whom, Ian, was also minister at Kintail. Kate was a schoolteacher at Crowlista for some time during the Great War.

The minister’s mother lived at Baile na Cille manse latterly and is said to have been the first person buried at Ardroil cemetery.

Rev Mackenzie left Uig in 1919 when he transferred to Rogart; he died at Baile na Cille manse, however, in 1926.

John Macleod, in his Brief Record of the Church in Uig, notes that

His was an unspectacular, unsensational ministry yet quietly impressive in its even tenor. He himself was educated, eloquent, doctrinally orthodox. He was well liked by his people and generous to the needy.