He appeared in many stage roles in the UK and overseas as well as featuring in a number of films, the best known of which is Alfred Hitchcock's 1927 production Downhill.

McKinnel was born in 1870 at Maxwelltown, Kirkcudbrightshire (since incorporated into Dumfries) and originally intended to follow his father into the engineering business before deciding to enter the acting profession.

The work consisted of four brief scenes from the play, and a two-minute fragment survives at the EYE Film Institute in Amsterdam.

Notably, he appeared as the same character (Nathaniel Jeffcote) in three separate film versions of the same play Hindle Wakes, in 1918 and 1927 silent adaptations and again in 1931 in sound.

McKinnel's most widely known film to contemporary audiences is Hitchcock's Downhill, as the harsh but ultimately repentant patriarch opposite Ivor Novello.