Faculty member to celebrate silk and book publication

A member of the Faculty of Advocates is looking forward to a double celebration, as he takes silk in England & Wales and has a book published.

John McKendrick will have the rank of Queen’s Counsel bestowed on him at a ceremony at Westminster Hall, and a few days later his work, DARIEN A Journey in Search of Empire, is released.

Mr McKendrick was admitted to Faculty in 2008, having been a barrister south of the border since 1999, and regularly works in the Caribbean and across Latin America. He called to the bar of the Eastern Caribbean Court in the Territory of the Virgin Islands in 2013.

Darien, a province of Panama in Central America, was the setting for the ill-fated attempt in the late seventeenth century by the Company of Scotland to create a major trading station which would be the foundation of a Scottish empire. Some 3,000 settlers set sail from Scotland but only a handful survived and returned after the venture failed.

The cover of DARIEN A Journey in Search of Empire states: “Based on archival research in the UK and Panama, as well as extensive travelling in Panama, Jamaica, Cuba and South Carolina, John McKendrick retraces the steps of those who went to forge a new life in the colony of Caledonia. In doing so, he uncovers fascinating new information from New World archives about the role of the English and Spanish in Scotland’s imperial misadventure, and about the identities of the settlers themselves.”

Mr McKendrick said: “From my days as a schoolboy in Glasgow I was fascinated by the heroic Scottish defeat in Darien and later interested to learn of the involvement of members of Faculty and Senators of the College of Justice in the Company of Scotland. The book paints a picture of the life of the Caledonians and makes some parallels with the Scotland of modern times.”

A second member of Faculty, Andrew Smith QC, will also take silk in England & Wales at the Westminster Hall ceremony.