Chapter II: WILLIAM MACKENZIE, afterwards of Newbie, Dumfries-shire,

and of Auchenskeoch, County of Kirkcud-bright, who was born at Marsden Chapel on the 20th of March, 1794. He was a celebrated engineer, first beginning his career under David Mackintosh, his father's partner. He subsequently practised his profession under Telford. He made his way very rapidly, taking part in most of the great engineering works - railways, canals, and bridges - of his time; and in the Shannon improvements, in connection with which the Secretary for Ireland complimented him in the highest terms in the House of Commons. After the introduction of railways he constructed the great Lime Street tunnel under Liverpool. He afterwards contracted for and engineered many railways - in some of which be was partner with John Stephenson and others - in Scotland and England, including the Glasgow and Greenock line, the London and Birmingham, the Trent Valley, the Lancaster and Carlisle, the North Union, the Ormskirk, and the Caledonian railway. He and Brassey finding they were tendering against one another, in 1841 joined forces for French railways, and constructed under the firm name of Mackenzie & Brassey (which consisted of himself, his brother Edward, and Brassey) the Paris and Rouen and Paris and Boulogne and Amiens, and several other railways in France, Belgium, and Spain, notably the Barcelona and Seville, and the Paris and Bourdeaux lines. Both King Louis Philippe and his successor Prince Louis Napoleon, then President of the French Republic and afterwards Emperor, showed him many marks of friendship and esteem, the latter having decided to make him a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour just before he died. In 1851, at Tours, at the opening of the Paris and Orleans Railway, Napoleon, grasping him by the band, thus addressed him - "I am happy to see you again so well. I am still happier to have the opportunity of thanking you, as President, for the great and useful works you have executed in France. I shall be glad to confer on you the decoration of the Legion of Honour, and I trust your Government will permit you to wear a distinction so well-merited." On the same occasion Napoleon exchanged portraits with him. Mackenzie, however, died very soon after, before the honour offered him by the President of the French Republic could be formally conferred upon him. In 1844 he was a claimant to the Muirton of Fairburn estate, but he does not seem to have followed it up.

He married, first, on the 9th of November, 1819, Mary, daughter of James Dalziel, Glasgow, a native of Rothesay, county of Bute, without issue. She died on the 19th of December, 1838, aged 49 years. He married secondly, on the 31st of December, 1839, Sarah, daughter of William Dewhurst of Chorley, Lancashire (she died in 1866), also without issue. He died on the 20th of October, 1851, when he was succeeded in his estates, and as representative of the family in this country, by his youngest brother,