[2] The eldest son of John McNair and Jeannie Ballantyne; his mother was a teacher and his father a member of Lloyd's.
He was accepted and won a classical scholarship for Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge; he took the law tripos in 1907 and 1908.
However, Buckland went to London to offer McNair a lectureship and fellowship at Caius College in 1912, which was accepted.
During the First World War, he worked under the coal controller, serving as secretary to the Sankey Commission in 1919.
However, he left the chair in 1937 to become Vice-Chancellor of Liverpool University where he remained until 1945. when he returned to Cambridge to take up the position of professor of comparative law.
[1] He was offered the position of master of Caius, but declined it in favour of joining the International Court of Justice.