[5] He was sworn of the Privy Council in 1908, and held the office of Justice of the Peace in Middlesex, Flint, Denbighshire, and Surrey.

In 1911, a year after he had left the Commons (his son replaced him), he was raised to the Peerage of the United Kingdom with the title Baron Aberconway, of Bodnant, in the County of Denbigh.

[2] On 6 March 1877, McLaren married Laura, the daughter of the chemist Henry Davis Pochin and suffragist Agnes Heap, in Westminster; the couple had four children.

They are buried at a mausoleum called "The Poem" within Bodnant Garden, which became the traditional burial place of the Lords Aberconway.

The older daughter Priscilla was a socialite as well as activist and married the journalist Sir Henry Norman, 1st Baronet.