Background
The only son of Major-general Sir Alexander Mackenzie of Coul, by his wife Katharine, daughter of Robert Ramsay of Camno, he was born on 22 June 1780. He succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of his father in 1796. He first became known to the scientific world in 1800, when he claimed a proof of the identity of diamond with carbon by a series of experiments on the formation of steel by the combination of diamonds with iron.
In these experiments he is said to have made free use of his mother"s jewels.
