!MENTION: Alick Morrison, THE CHIEFS OF CLAN MACLEOD, East Kilbride,
Scotland, 1986.
!BIOGRAPHY: Rev. Dr. Donald MacKinnon and Alick Morrison, THE
MACLEODS--THE GENEALOGY OF A CLAN, Section II, Edinburgh, The Clan
MacLeod Society, ND, pp. iii-xxii.
Norman Magnus was born on 27th July 1839 and was educated at
Harrow. Adopting the Army as a career, he obtained a Commission in the
74th Highlanders in 1858 and joined his Regiment in India. He served as
aide de camp to General Sir Hope Grant, Commander in Chief in the
Presidency of Madras from 1862 to 1865. Retiring from the Army as
Captain in 1872, he went to Natal where he held various appointments
and at this time made a trip into the interior of Africa, in the course of
which he paid a visit to the Victoria Falls and took part in big game
hunting, trophies of which adorn the Hall at Dunvegan Castle. On the
outbreak of the Zulu War in 1878, he was appointed Political Agent on
the Transvaal border and, in the following year, accepted the command of
the Zulu Army, numbering 8,000 men, and so distinguished himself in
that post that he was awarded the Zulu War Medal and the honour of the
C.M.G. Norman Magnus returned home in 1880. On his accession to the
Chiefship, he interested himself in the economic welfare of his own
Clansmen and of the people of the Highlands and Islands, co-operating
with the Government in the settlement of the people on the land. In
1920 he sold, with the consent of the heirs of entail, 60,000 acres of
land to the Government for this purpose. As a Chief and Laird, Norman
Magnus was greatly beloved. He married on 27th April 1881 Emily
Caroline (b. 1857, d. 1943) second daughter of Sir Charles Isham, 10th
Baronet of Lamport Hall, Northampton, with issue.
Norman Magnus MacLeod, the 26th Chief, died on 5th November 1929 and
was succeeded by his brother.