55 Facts About Lachlan Macquarie

Major General Lachlan Macquarie, CB was a British Army officer and colonial administrator from Scotland.

Lachlan Macquarie is considered by historians to have had a crucial influence on the transition of New South Wales from a penal colony to a free settlement and therefore to have played a major role in the shaping of Australian society in the early nineteenth century.

Lachlan Macquarie was born on the island of Ulva off the coast of the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides, a chain of islands off the West Coast of Scotland.

Lachlan Macquarie's father, Lachlan senior, worked as a carpenter and miller, and was a cousin of a Clan MacQuarrie chieftain.

Lachlan Macquarie volunteered to join the British Army in 1776 and was assigned to the 84th Regiment of Foot.

Lachlan Macquarie avoided being captured or killed by the victorious Americans by being posted in Jamaica at the time of the British defeat in the war.

Lachlan Macquarie saw active service from 1790 to 1792 during the Third Anglo-Mysore War, under General Abercromby, participating in the Capture of Cannanore and the 1792 Siege of Seringapatam.

Lachlan Macquarie resigned from his commanding role soon after the campaign.

Lachlan Macquarie participated in front-line combat during the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War against the forces of Tipu Sultan, helping defeat them first at the Battle of Seedaseer and then at the siege and storming of Tipu's palace at Srirangapatna in 1799.

In 1800, Lachlan Macquarie was part of the British entourage headed by Governor Duncan that forced Mir Nasiruddin Khan of Surat to sign a treaty with the East India Company dictating the handover of that province to Company rule.

In 1801, Lachlan Macquarie was appointed by General David Baird as Deputy Adjutant-General of the large British-Indian expeditionary force assigned to link up with Sir Ralph Abercromby's army to expel the French Army from Egypt.

Lachlan Macquarie sailed with his regiment to Egypt from India with the French already in retreat toward Alexandria.

Lachlan Macquarie arrived there two days after the capitulation of Alexandria to the British.

Lachlan Macquarie remained in Egypt for about a year during which time he met up with his brother and contracted syphilis.

Lachlan Macquarie served in London as Assistant Adjutant General to Lord Harrington and was able to purchase an estate on his native Isle of Mull, which he named Jarvisfield.

In 1805, Lachlan Macquarie was ordered to return to India to take charge of the 86th Regiment of Foot and after arriving became military secretary to Governor Duncan at Bombay.

Later that year, Lachlan Macquarie married his third cousin Elizabeth Henrietta Campbell in Devon and took command of the 73rd Regiment in Scotland as a Lieutenant-Colonel.

Lachlan Macquarie's wife gave birth to a daughter in 1808 which died in infancy.

On 8 May 1809 Lachlan Macquarie was appointed to the position of Governor of New South Wales and its dependencies.

Lachlan Macquarie left for the colony on 22 May 1809, on HMS Dromedary, accompanied by HMS Hindostan.

Lachlan Macquarie wrote about them in his diaries: "very fine, well-looking healthy Black Boys".

Lachlan Macquarie was ordered by the British government to arrest two of the leaders of the Rum Rebellion, John Macarthur and Major George Johnston.

However, by the time that Lachlan Macquarie arrived in Sydney, both Macarthur and Johnston had already sailed for England to defend themselves.

Lachlan Macquarie himself chose to keep the peace with the remaining NSW Corps officers and maintained an ambivalent attitude to the rebellion against Bligh.

Part of Lachlan Macquarie's undertaking of bringing order to the colony was to refashion the convict settlement into an urban environment of organised towns with streets and parks.

The elaborate stables which Lachlan Macquarie commissioned for Government House are now part of the modern structure housing the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Lachlan Macquarie officially named and established Hyde Park as a public recreation area.

In late 1810, Lachlan Macquarie toured the regions around Sydney naming and marking out the sites and street plans of future towns such as Liverpool, Windsor and Richmond.

Lachlan Macquarie is credited with producing the first official currency specifically for circulation in Australia.

Lachlan Macquarie encouraged the creation of the colony's first bank, the Bank of New South Wales, in 1817.

Lachlan Macquarie was given specific instructions to encourage morality and orderliness in the colony.

Lachlan Macquarie promoted marriage and church attendance, increased police patrols and made laws against public alcohol consumption.

Lachlan Macquarie wanted the ex-convicts to live reformed, law-abiding Christian lives.

Lachlan Macquarie viewed these types of ex-convicts as ideal models of social transformation, and rewarded them by elevating their social standing and appointing them to important government positions.

Lachlan Macquarie looked favourably on issuing land grants to emancipists, and in 1811 when wishing to expand British settlement to the south-west, he issued a large amount of 30 and 40 acre grants in the Appin region to ex-convicts.

Later, in 1818, when expanding the colonisation in the Bathurst district, Lachlan Macquarie personally selected ten settlers, many of whom were emancipists.

Lachlan Macquarie utilised his civic building programme to encourage employment and economic activity.

The subsequent personal antipathy between him and Lachlan Macquarie resulted in making the court unworkable.

Lachlan Macquarie was a great sponsor of British exploration in the colony.

Lachlan Macquarie himself participated in a number of expeditions around the Sydney Basin and to other regions including Jervis Bay, Port Stephens, the Hunter River, Bathurst and Van Diemen's Land.

Lachlan Macquarie invariably named the landmarks and new settlements he came across after himself, his wife or members of the British aristocracy.

In 1815, Lachlan Macquarie ordered the establishment of Bathurst on this river, which became Australia's first inland British settlement.

Lachlan Macquarie initially made proclamations to promote peace but later sent an armed expedition to patrol the area.

Lachlan Macquarie developed a strategy of rewarding Aboriginals who assisted the British by declaring them 'chiefs of their tribe' and presenting them with a brass breast-plate engraved with their name and title even though it often did not reflect their actual clan status.

Lachlan Macquarie rewarded these 'chiefs' with small parcels of land set aside for the use of their families.

Lachlan Macquarie ordered the mobilisation of three detachments of the military in order to go:.

Two surviving women and three children were taken prisoner and Lachlan Macquarie rewarded Wallis for his efforts by appointing him Commandant of the Newcastle convict settlement.

Hostilities continued for most of the rest of 1816 with Lachlan Macquarie proclaiming no Aborigines were allowed into the settled areas without a passport and issuing search and destroy orders for a further 10 Aboriginal men.

Bigge's reports subsequently depicted Lachlan Macquarie as having an error of conduct in making New South Wales a place for the convicts to reform back into society rather than a place of punishment, and stated that his policies of remediation toward the emancipated were not only 'inexpedient and dangerous' but were 'an act of violence' to the established colonists.

Lachlan Macquarie offered his resignation several times, which was accepted in 1820 with Thomas Brisbane replacing him as governor in 1821.

Lachlan Macquarie served longer than any other governor but not long after, in 1824, the overall power within the role was reduced by the introduction of the New South Wales Legislative Council, Australia's first legislative body, appointed to advise the governor.

Lachlan Macquarie returned to Scotland, and died in London in 1824 while busy defending himself against Bigge's charges.

Lachlan Macquarie formally adopted the name Australia for the continent, the name earlier proposed by the first circumnavigator of Australia, Matthew Flinders.

Lachlan Macquarie was promoted to Colonel in 1810, Brigadier-General in 1811 and Major-General in 1813, while serving as governor.

Lachlan Macquarie was buried on the Isle of Mull in a mausoleum near Salen with his wife, daughter and son.