Kenneth MacLeod

Biographical information

RolesNon-starter
SexMale
Full nameKenneth Grant•MacLeod
Used nameKenneth•MacLeod
Born2 February 1888 in New Kilpatrick, Scotland (GBR)
Died7 March 1967 in St. James, Capetown, Western Cape (RSA)
AffiliationsUniversity of Cambridge, Cambridge (GBR)
NOC Great Britain

Biography

Kenneth Grant MacLeod was probably the greatest all-round Scottish sportsman ever seen. Educated at Fettes College, Edinburgh, and then Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he became a triple Blue at cricket, athletics, and rugby. He could have also won a golf Blue had he devoted more time to the sport.

As a rugby player, MacLeod was a fast three-quarter or winger and played in the Varsity match four years in succession 1905-08. He also won the 100 yards in three successive years, 1906-08, and was the 1906 Scottish long jump champion. MacLeod played rugby for Scotland 10 times between 1905-08 and would have played for them earlier while still at Fettes School had his headmaster not outlawed the selection. MacLeod made his international début in the 1905 match against the All Blacks at Inverleith, when his brother Lewis played alongside him.

At cricket, Kenneth MacLeod played 94 First Class matches for Cambridge University and Lancashire between 1908-14, scoring 3,458 runs, including a memorable 131 against Leicestershire at Old Trafford in 1911. As a bowler, he took 103 wickets with personal best figures of 6 for 29.

The son of a wealthy tobacco importer, living in Liverpool at the turn of the 20th century, MacLeod was one of three rugby-playing siblings. Donald played for Birkenhead Park and Cheshire while fellow Scottish international Lewis was a Cambridge Blue and was captain in 1905 when Kenneth won his first rugby Blue. Lewis also played for Birkenhead Park and was club captain at the time of his untimely death during a seemingly routine appendicitis operation at the end of 1907. The two brothers played together for Cambridge in a memorable match against the touring All Blacks in 1905, when a record crowd witnessed one of the finest games of rugby seen at the University ground. Had it not been for the MacLeod brothers thwarting many New Zealand attacks, the tourists would have won by a bigger margin than 14-0.

The death of Lewis affected Kenneth badly and on 4 January 1909, after his time at university, he announced his retirement from rugby and athletics. His father also felt it was time he got a job, and Kenneth secured himself a school-teaching post.

MacLeod joined the Gordon Highlanders at the start of World War I and was wounded in March 1915; six months later his other rugby-playing brother Donald was killed at Ypres, when hit by a German shell while talking with three colleagues. MacLeod’s father made a vast fortune from his tobacco business and when he died in 1927 left an estate worth £255,000 – the equivalent of over £16 million in 2020.

Results

Games Discipline (Sport) / Event NOC / Team Pos Medal As
1908 Summer Olympics Athletics GBR Kenneth MacLeod
100 metres, Men (Olympic) DNS