Back in the Day: The Scotsman who became the Father of Australia

A British man goes on holiday in Australia. After getting off the plane in Sydney, the man waits to go through Australian customs.

“Do you have anything to declare?” asks the Australian customs officer.

“No,” replies the tourist.

“Do you have a criminal record?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know that was still a requirement.”

Now most and indeed hopefully all Aussies will realise it’s just a joke, but it is an apposite way of introducing an extraordinary Scotsman who was largely responsible from turning a penal settlement into a proper colony of the Crown. He was so successful that Lachlan Macquarie is considered by many to be the Father of Australia, the very name of the country being credited to his first use of it in official documentation.

In a sense, all of Macquarie’s life prior to arriving in Australia was a preparation for his giant task.

He was born on Ulva, an island off the west coast of Mull, on January 31, 1762. His father, also Lachlan, was the cousin of the 16th and last chief of Clan MacQuarrie – there are various versions of the name but the man himself used Macquarie – and his mother Margaret, nee Maclaine, was the only sister of Murdoch, 19th Laird of Lochbuie on Mull. Despite these connections, Lachlan senior was not well off – he worked as a carpenter and latterly was a tenant farmer on Mull before he died suddenly when his son was just 14.

Lachlan Macquarie had received some education, possibly in the Royal High School in Edinburgh, before he joined the Army at the age of 15, becoming an ensign in April, 1777, in the 84th Regiment of Foot, known as the Royal Highland Emigrants. His uncle Murdoch was a captain in the same regiment which saw service in Canada and America. Macquarie’s two brothers, Hector and Donald, both served in the Army there, the former dying while in captivity.

Macquarie transferred to the 71st regiment – MacLeod’s Highlanders – as a lieutenant and after service in Jamaica he was sent back to Scotland in 1784 on half pay, the usual fate for officers when there was no war for them to fight in. There soon was a war, however, and he joined the 77th Regiment of Foot, known as Montgomerie’s Highlanders, as a senior lieutenant before being promoted to captain-lieutenant at the then Bombay, now Mumbai, in India.

The 1790s saw Macquarie taking part in many of the main actions fought by the British in India, ending with the war in Mysore and the epic Siege of Seringapatam which ended with the death of Tipu Sultan. He enjoyed great happiness and terrible sadness in India as he married his first wife Jane Jarvis in September, 1793, only for her to die of tuberculosis just three years later.

He had become a friend of Major General David Baird, the hero of Seringapatam, and it was he who appointed Macquarie as Deputy Adjutant General of the British-Indian army that took Egypt by storm in 1801-02, expelling the French forces sent there by the Emperor Napoleon. Macquarie’s younger brother Charles had been severely wounded at Aboukir, but not having seen each other for 14 years, the two brothers re-united and then Macquarie went home to Scotland in 1804 just in time to attend his uncle Murdoch on his death bed. He also met and later married his cousin Elizabeth Campbell in what proved a very fortunate match for him.

After further military adventures in India and Europe, and by now a Lieutenant Colonel in the 73rd Perthshire Regiment, Macquarie got the posting that would make his life – Governor of New South Wales. He arrived in the colony on Hogmanay, 1810, accompanied by his wife and his regiment.

His instructions from Colonies Secretary Lord Castlereagh were simple: “The Great Objects of attention are to improve the Morals of the Colonists, to encourage Marriage, to provide for Education, to prohibit the Use of Spirituous Liquors, to increase the Agriculture and Stock, so as to ensure the Certainty of a full supply to the Inhabitants under all Circumstances.”

The previous governor was one William Bligh – the captain who caused and survived the mutiny on the Bounty. Under Bligh the supposed “police” force of British soldiers, the New South Wales Corps, had brutally put down a rising by mainly Irish rebels and the corps itself had also rebelled.

Macquarie was having none of that and the 73rd regiment imposed order immediately. Bligh and the Corps went home to Britain and Macquarie got to work. He knew the real problem was between those who had been sent to New South Wales as convicts and then been freed – the “emancipists” – and those who had gone to Australia as free settlers who had all the positions in authority and most of the wealth. They would become known as the “exclusives”.

Macquarie’s first statement to the colonists was recorded in his diary: “It is the earnest wish of our most gracious King to promote the welfare and prosperity of this rising colony. The honest, sober, and industrious inhabitant, whether free settler or convict, will ever find in me a friend and protector.”

SO began Macquarie’s long years of hard toil as he tried almost single-handedly to make a proper colony of New South Wales. At times only his wife Elizabeth supported him as he fired out order after order to transform the settlement into a full-blown colony. It needed root and branch changes – there was no proper coinage and many things were paid for with rum, including an entire hospital in Sydney. The legal system needed building up, and all the time there was the pressure to explore the rest of the Continent – Macquarie fostered and paid for several expeditions into the Interior.

His achievements are legendary in Australia. He introduced liquor licensing, he founded and laid out entire towns, built roads and schools, encouraged Christian societies – though he also sponsored horse racing and loved the theatre – and somehow did all this with mainly convict labour, the number of people transported to Australia soaring as Britain got tough on its underclass. In all he undertook, managed or caused some 265 building projects in his time in Australia.

He founded a school for the Aborigine people, but also got himself mired in controversy over an incident in which sent his soldiers into the Bush to hunt down alleged Aborigine lawbreakers.

He wrote in his diary: “I have this Day ordered three Separate Military Detachments to march into the Interior and remote parts of the Colony, for the purpose of Punishing the Hostile Natives, by clearing the Country of them entirely, and driving them across the mountains; as well as if possible to apprehend the Natives who have committed the late murders and outrages, with the view of their being made dreadful and severe examples of, if taken alive. — I have directed as many Natives as possible to be made Prisoners, with the view of keeping them as Hostages until the real guilty ones have surrendered themselves, or have been given up by their Tribes to summary Justice. — In the event of the Natives making the smallest show of resistance – or refusing to surrender when called upon so to do – the officers Commanding the Military Parties have been authorized to fire on them to compel them to surrender; hanging up on Trees the Bodies of such Natives as may be killed on such occasions, in order to strike the greater terror into the Survivors.”

A tough call by a tough soldier, and it was one of the numerous events which made him enemies, especially among the “exclusives” who were in virtual revolt when Macquarie made two “emancipists” into magistrates. Yet slowly his reforms began to take effect, and the Government back home took notice, promoting him to Major General in 1813 shortly before his only son Lachlan was born.

He had promised to stay eight years, but eventually served for almost 12 before his resignation was accepted. It was prompted by a report by JT Bigge into his administration which was highly critical of Macquarie’s high-handedness.

IN February 1822, Macquarie and his family left Australia, never to return. Macquarie typically penned his own valediction for he was no shrinking violet: “When I took Charge of this Government, on the 1st of January, 1810, I found the Colony in a state of rapid deterioration: threatened with a famine; discord and party spirit prevailing to a great degree; all the public buildings in a state of dilapidation and decay; very few roads and bridges, and those few very bad; the inhabitants, generally, very poor; and commerce and public credit at the lowest ebb. I now have the happiness to reflect, that I leave it in a very different condition: the face of the Country generally, and agriculture in particular, greatly improved; stock, of all kinds, greatly increased; some useful manufactories established; commerce revived, and public credit restored; a great number of substantial and useful public edifices erected; good roads and bridges of communication constructed throughout the Colony; and the inhabitants, comparatively, opulent and happy. To have been instrumental in bringing about so favourable a change, will ever be, to me, a source of sincere delight.

His next words were for his critics: “I am well aware that every man in public life must have enemies, and perhaps it would be unreasonable, in me, to expect to be totally exempted from the virulent attacks of party and disaffection. But, buoyed above the fear of base calumny, vindictive slander, and malicious reproach, by the consciousness of a long life of upwards of forty years’ service spent in honorable pursuits, and stained with no action which can give me remorse, I confidently anticipate not only the approbation of my Sovereign, but also the applause of Posterity, for the purity of my motives and the rectitude of my actions during my long, arduous, and laborious Administration of this Colony; in the future welfare and prosperity of which, I shall ever feel a deep interest, and lively solicitude.”

Macquarie made it home to Mull but in the early part of 1824 he was savagedly criticised in Parliament and decided to go south to defend himself. He had suffered digestion problems since his time in India and now they flared up again. Elizabeth and Lachlan Junior hurried south and got there just before he died.

He was mourned across Britain and in Australia where there are numerous places named after him including Port Macquarie and Macquarie University.

On his mausoleum on Mull, now administered by the National Trust of Australia, the following tribute is paid: “He was appointed governor of New South Wales a.d. 1809 and for twelve years fulfilled the duties of that station with eminent ability and success. His services in that capacity have justly attached a lasting honour to his name. The wisdom, liberality, and benevolence of all the measures of his administration, his respect for the ordinances of religion and the ready assistance which he gave to every charitable institution, the unwearied assiduity with which he sought to promote the welfare of all classes of the community, the rapid improvement of the colony under his auspices, and the high estimation in which both his character and government were held rendered him truly deserving the appellation by which he has been distinguished the Father of Australia.”