executive Chief of Clan Macnab
Born in London, the elder son of Lieutenant-Colonel James Alexander Macnabb Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire Territorial Decoration, de jure the 21st Macnab of Macnab, by his marriage to Ursula Walford (formerly Barnett), of Wokingham, the young Macnab was educated at Cothill House, Radley College, and Ashbury College, Ottawa.
Radley College.
Between 1944 and 1945, during the closing stages of the Second World War, Macnab served in the Royal Air Force and the Scots Guards. He was commissioned as a Lieutenant into the Seaforth Highlanders in 1945. In 1948 he transferred to the Federation of Malaya Police Force, serving successively as an Assistant Superintendent, then Acting Deputy Superintendent, and retired in 1957.
He returned as a Captain into the Seaforth Highlanders (Territorial Army), from 1960 to 1964, and was a Justice of the Peace for Perthshire from 1968 to 1975, then for Stirling from 1975 to 1986.
In 1961 he was elected to the Western Perthshire District Council, and from 1964 to 1975 was a County Councillor for Perth and Kinross. He was an Executive Consultant with Hill Samuel Investment Services from 1982 to 1992.
In 1959 Macnab married Diana Mary, daughter of William Anstruther-Gray, Baron Kilmany. In 1860 Archibald McNab of McNab, the 17th Chief, and last in the direct male line of Chiefs, died in France at the age of eighty-three.
After she died in Florence in 1894 the succession was disputed until the 1950s.
After long years of research, begun in earnest in 1907, the Arthurstone Macnabbs, who were descended from a younger son of a Chief who died in 1645, were able to establish their claim. However, he was faced with high death duties, with the result that in 1978 he had to sell Kinnell House and much of the estate.
He became a Member of the Central Regional Council in 1978, serving until 1982. The Macnab lived at Leuchars Castle Farmhouse, Leuchars, Street Andrews, Fife, and was a member of the New Club, Edinburgh.
