Mackonochie, ALEXANDER HERIOT

Mackonochie, ALEXANDER HERIOT, priest, was born at Fareham in Hampshire, 11th August 1825, the son of a Scotch East Indian colonel. He was privately educated at Bath and Exeter, studied awhile at Edinburgh University, and in 1845 went up to Wadham College, Oxford. In 1848 he took a second-class in classics, and next year was ordained to a curacy at Westbury, removing in 1852 to Wantage, and in 1858 to St George's-in-the-East. In 1862 he became the first vicar of St Alban's, Holborn—the small but crowded slum where for twenty years he did a great work that lives after him. His prosecution (or persecution) by the Church Association for ritualistic practices commenced in 1867; and at last in 1882, in accordance with the dying wish of Archbishop Tait, he sought to withdraw from further conflict by resignation. He accepted the charge of St Peter's, London Docks; that, too, a twelvemonth later he had to resign. His health broke down; and on 15th December 1887, during a visit to the Bishop of Argyll at Ballachulish, he lost his way in the Mamore deer-forest, and was found two days later lying dead in the snow, a deerhound and a Skye terrier guarding him. He rests in the St Alban's burial-ground at Woking. See his Life by Mrs Towle (1890).