Robert Munro, 1st Baron Alness

Munro was born in Alness, Ross-shire, the son of Margaret (née Sinclair), daughter of Reverend John Sinclair, and Reverend Alexender Ross Munro. He was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and the University of Edinburgh.[1]

Townhouse at 15 Heriot Row, Edinburgh

Munro was admitted to the Scottish Bar as an Advocate in 1893. He was a Counsel to the Board of Inland Revenue and became a King's Counsel in 1910.[1] At this point he lived at 15 Heriot Row: a huge Georgian townhouse in the centre of Edinburgh.[2][3]

In the January 1910 general election he was elected as a Liberal Member of Parliament for Wick Burghs, holding the seat until its abolition for the 1918 election.[1][4] He was then returned to the House of Commons as MP for the new Roxburgh and Selkirk constituency, holding the seat until 1922.[1][5]

In 1913 Munro was sworn of the Privy Council[6] and appointed Lord Advocate[7][8] by H. H. Asquith. When David Lloyd George became Prime Minister in December 1916, Munro entered the cabinet as Secretary for Scotland,[9] a post he held until the end of the coalition government in October 1922. The latter year he was appointed to the bench as Lord Justice Clerk and President of Second Division of the Court of Session,[10] taking the judicial title Lord Alness. He also held the office of Honourable Bencher, Lincoln's Inn in 1924.[1]

Following his retirement from the bench in 1933, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Alness, of Alness in the County of Ross and Cromarty, on 27 June 1934.[11] He returned to political office in May 1940 when Winston Churchill appointed him a Lord-in-waiting (government whip) in the newly formed war coalition,[12] sitting as a Liberal National. He retained this post (as one of few non-Conservatives) in Churchill's brief 1945 caretaker government. In 1947 he was invested as a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire.[1]

Lord Alness was also a Deputy Lieutenant of Edinburgh.[1]

Lord Alness was twice married. He married firstly Edith Gwladys Evans, daughter of Reverend John Lewellyan Evans, in 1898. After her death in September 1920 he married secondly Olga Marie Grumler, daughter of Jeanes Georges Grumler, in 1921. Both marriages were childless. Lord Alness died in October 1955, aged 87, when the barony became extinct.[1]

• Torrance, David, The Scottish Secretaries (Birlinn 2006)

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Robert Munro