Murdoch Macdonald

Sir Murdoch MacDonald (6 May 1866 – 24 April 1957) was a notable Scottish civil engineer and British politician. Born in Inverness, and educated at the Farraline Park Institution there, he would serve later as the constituency's MP from 1922 until 1950.

A civil engineer by profession starting in 1890, MacDonald would work in British Egypt from 1898 to 1921. He established the firm of consulting engineers which eventually practised under the name of Sir M MacDonald & Partners from 1927. In 1932, he became President of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

Engineering career MacDonald served his apprenticeship as an engineer with the former Highland Railway Company, and following its completion he spent some years as an assistant engineer on various railway construction projects in Northern Scotland. Among them, there was the building of the Black Isle line between 1890 and 1894, and the widening of the main line between Dalnaspidal and Blair Athol. Years later, MacDonald noted that his early railway work included the design and construction of a small earthen dam and hydroelectric plant.

In 1898, he was invited by Benjamin Baker to go to Egypt as assistant engineer to Maurice Fitzmaurice, the resident engineer in charge of constructing the first Aswan Dam. MacDonald's appointment as an assistant engineer during the building of this significant structure marked the beginning of a 23-year term of service in Egypt. During the same dam's first heightening between 1908 and 1912, MacDonald was director-general of irrigation for the Egyptian Government. He subsequently became Under Secretary of State for Public Works, and finally adviser to Egypt's Minister of Public Works.

Political career MacDonald was elected as a Liberal Party Member of Parliament (MP) for Inverness in 1922. He joined the National Liberal Party split in 1931, but resigned from the National Liberal group in the House of Commons in 1942 and according to some descriptions stood as an Independent Liberal MP at the 1945 general election. However Who was Who, The Times and Whitaker's Almanack all show Macdonald with the description Liberal National in 1945. At his last election, he became the House's oldest MP. He remained a member of his constituency association, which was aligned with the National Liberals. He sat until he retired as the oldest MP in 1950, at age 83.

He died, aged 90, in 1957.