5

'Father of Australia'

- and brother Charles of Ulva

I think my name will not readily be forgotten after I have left.... [I would be happy] to have you, as my successor, appointed Governor in Chief of New South Wales and its Dependencies! What a proud thing it would be to have two brothers succeed each other as Governors of this immense Continent.

- Major-General Lachlan Macquarie to Lt-Colonel Charles Macquarie Sydney, 12 October 1814 ¹

So far this story has been confined mainly to the homeland of the Clan in Scotland, with only occasional hints of wider horizons. This chapter will show how the name has become more widely known on the other side of the world than it is at home, through the influence of one famous clansman. But eventually we will move back to his native Hebrides, with Lachlan Macquarie and his brother Charles both holding lands in Mull, until it finally turns to the latter's brief period as laud of Ulva itself.

Theirs was a name, otherwise largely unknown in Lachlan's time, with which he and his admirers sprinkled the map of Australia and the Antipodes: Port Macquarie, the Macquarie River, Plains, Range and Lake Macquarie in New South Wales, Macquarie Harbour and another Macquarie River in Tasmania, Port Macquarie (now known as The Bluff) in New Zealand, and Macquarie Island in the South Pacific. This emphasis is an indication of his pride of race as well as his egotism, for although he was a good Australian by adoption he was first and foremost a good Scot, a proud highlander and a loyal clansman, fond of recalling the ancient descent of his clan and the little territory which they owned, even when oceans divided him from the land of his origin.

Lachlan and Charles Macquarie's exact relationship in the male line to their chief (whose story has been told in Chapter 3) has never been satisfactorily explained. That they were of good family and related in some degree is generally accepted, but a contemporary genealogy merely says of their father Lachlan that 'it cannot be traced when he came off the McQuaries of McQuarie, he was so distant a connection.' This Lachlan is variously described as a crofter-fisherman, house carpenter, and the last miller at Laggan-ulva (on the mainland of Mull near Ulva Ferry). But he was 'an active good-looking young man', and it is perhaps some confirmation of the gentility of his ancestry that he married the granddaughter of an earlier chief of Ulva, sister to Murdoch MacLaine who later became laud of Lochbuie.²

The life of a crofter-fisherman on Ulva would be one of simple tastes and frugal habits, and the family would not be well off. Some years before the sale of Ulva in 1777, they moved to Oskamull on the Mull side of Ulva Ferry, part of the property which had in 1762 been sold to Maclean of Torloisk, owner of much of the land facing Ulva on the north side of Loch Tuath.

It was this connection with Torloisk, as we have seen, that gave young Lachlan Macquarie his first step on the military ladder.³ When the American Revolution broke out in 1775, Lt-Colonel Allan MacLean, brother of the laird of Torloisk, was commissioned to raise a corps of Royal Highland Emigrants (later numbered the 84th Regiment) with the right to recruit for service in North America against the insurgent colonists. One of the captains in this new regiment was Murdoch MacLaine, then a merchant in Edinburgh, who raised nearly 100 men from the Lochbuie estate; his nephews Donald, Hector and Lachlan Macquarie all joined the 84th as volunteers and accompanied their uncle to America. The two older brothers were unfortunately captured: Donald by the French in 1778 (he returned to Mull in poor health after being released); and Hector by the Americans off Charlestown in 1776 (he died a prisoner in rebel hands).⁴

Young Lachlan Macquarie was luckier. He was commissioned as ensign in the 2nd Battalion of the regiment under Major James Small (9 April 1777), and transferred as lieutenant to the lst Bn 71st Regiment or Fraser's Highlanders (18 January 1781). With them he saw no fighting on land, but took part in a brush with an American privateer at sea, and endured garrison duty in Nova Scotia, New York, Carolina and Jamaica before returning to Scotland in 1784 and going on half-pay.⁵ Owing to a break in the succession caused by the death in a duel of Archibald, heir to his father John as laird of Lochbuie, Lachlan's uncle Murdoch MacLaine succeeded to that estate on John's death in 1785; and after a spell as factor (or manager) of these estates (a post in which his brother Charles followed him),⁶ Lachlan secured through General Allan's influence a lieutenancy in one of four regiments raised by the British government (under threat of war with France) for service in India. He owed a promise of rank as senior lieutenant in the 77th Foot - it was not a Highland regiment - to General Allan MacLean's influence with Colonel James Marsh, on condition that he could raise 15 men for service. According to Lachlan's own account, during that winter of 1787-8 he scoured Mull, Morvern and Ardnamurchan for recruits without success, being 'equally unfortunate in all parts of Mull' in spite of the interest of his uncle Lochbuie and his 'good friend' Torloisk, Allan's brother. Nor did he do any better in Ulva itself: 'in the place of my nativity and ancient possessions of my ancestors; among my own clan and namesakes, the Macquaries of Ulva; where every fair and lawful means were used by ... my relation the Laird of Macquarie, and myself.

'Such is the aversion of these people to become soldiers or to go abroad, that not­withstanding the entreaties of their old chief and master, not one of his ungrateful clan (to whom he had been in the days of his prosperity a most kind and generous master), would enlist or follow me and his own son Murdoch Macquarie (a lad about sixteen years of age) who voluntarily offered to follow my fortunes and push his own in India as a volunteer.' ⁷

Deeply disappointed, the young subaltern - he was not yet 27 - went south through Lorne to Inveraray, crossed the Clyde to Greenock, and arrived in Glasgow on Christmas Day, nearly six weeks after receiving his 'beating orders' and still without his complement of men. There he went about recruiting in the conventional way, and by the fifth of February he had 21 men, whom he marched to Leith, and after a dismal voyage from Forth to Thames disembarked them at Gravesend and marched them to Dover. He found the regiment there nearly complete, but four of his recruits were rejected, and he was blamed for not having brought more. 

Appointed to command a company in his new regiment, Lachlan arrived in Bom­bay determined to make soldiering his life's work. Both for military duties and social amenities, service in India was well suited to his talents and temperament. During the next 14 years he had his first taste of fighting and also of staff work, and rose to the brevet rank of lieutenant-colonel; but how he advanced his army career has been so well and fully told that it need not be repeated in detail here.⁸

The strong pride of race which Lachlan Macquarie combined with zeal in his chosen profession led to an instinctive desire to possess some property in his native land. A brief but happy marriage helped him to carry out this ambition. The wedding took place at Bombay in September 1793, and his bride was a friend's sister, Jane Jarvis, whose father had been chief justice of Antigua (where she had been born just under 21 years before), a gentleman of fortune whose family was to inherit the manor of Doddington in Lincoln­shire. Sadly, on cutting short his part in a campaign in Ceylon, Lachlan returned to Bombay to find her dying of consumption; hoping that sea air might help her recovery, they sailed for China; but she died at Macao on 15 July 1796, leaving her 35-year-old husband in a paroxysm of grief.⁹

At first Lachlan seriously thought of burying himself for the remainder of his 'melancholy life' in some lonely retired cottage in England, or remaining to end his days in Bombay.¹⁰ Time softened the blow, however, and he realized that, besides forwarding his own career, two forms of consolation were open to him: to use his influence for the benefit of some of his poor relations at home by procuring them commissions in the army, and to see the name of Macquarie restored in the person of himself and his brother Charles to the roll of those who owned landed property on Mull.

Returning with his wife's body to Bombay, Lachlan had her honourably buried in the European cemetery there. A black marble tombstone was ordered from England, and nearly 150 years later wartime service in India enabled me to see it and copy the elaborate epitaph to 'the best of Wives and most amiable of Women' which her grieving husband left as 'a lasting monument of their mutual disinterested Love and Affection for one another'.

Although disconsolate, Lachlan was able to give some thought to others and to make plans for the future. At the end of January he wrote to his uncle Lochbuie: 'Since I cannot now be happy myself in this cruel world, I wish to see others so. I will therefore endeavour to do all the good I can to my poor relations, or raise as many of them as possible from obscurity, which will afford me a sensible pleasure in being able to do. ¹¹

After 24 years as an officer and twelve years continuous service in India, Lachlan was only a captain, but he had acquired a number of lucrative army appointments. He was a company commander in the 77th and paymaster of the regiment, and Master of Brigade in the King's Troops on the coast of Malabar; a career of hard work (and some judicious flattery) had given him a position of influence in high quarters, up to the commander-in-chief himself. Even before his all-too-brief marriage, he had already begun to find openings 'in the commission way' for his relations back home. ¹²

His first success was with his own brother Charles (about ten years his junior), who had a small farm on their uncle Lochbuie's estate on Mull. This seemed an occupation with poor prospects to the major of brigade in Bombay, for whom the military was the only known path to wealth and honour, as well as being the only way in which he could be of any assistance to his brother. Britain was now on the brink of war with revolutionary France, and early in 1792 Lachlan secured for Charles an ensigncy in his own regiment, the 77th, and provided £200 to bring him out to India and give him a first taste of soldiering.¹³ But Charles preferred to remain at home, and although he had actually embarked for Bombay he did not proceed; by some exchanges between regiments by February 1794 he had become captain and paymaster in the 116th Foot, to which he brought 375 men (mostly Highlanders), and with whom he was drafted into the 42nd or Royal Highland Regiment a year later for service in the Mediterranean. ¹⁴

Thus began what Lachlan's first biographer calls the 'altruistic schemings' and 'curious devices' which he brought into play for 'inducting every young Macquarie and Maclean on Mull and Ulva into the British Army', and these proceeded apace. ¹⁵

 

Figure 5 Proteges' Progress

All the following officers from Mull or Ulva are known to have owed their first commissions to the influence of the future governor Lachlan Macquarie during his service in India from August 1788 to the end of 1802. The list gives date of rank and regiment, as shown in British Army Lists; relationship to Lachlan (where known), highest rank attained, and date of death; + indicates killed or died on service. Lachlan also obtained commissions or promotion for some of his first wife's relations, but they are not included here.

 

16 Jan 1792      Charles Macquarrie (brother); brevet It-col. 1811; d Ulva 27 Mar '35.

7 Feb 1794       +John MacLean (son of Gillean of Scallastle and Marie MacQuarrie of Ulva); d of wounds after Waterloo, 18 Jun '15.

28 Nov 1795      +Hector MacQuarrie (chiefs son); ensign, 73 Ft; exchanged lt. 33 Ft.14 May 1799; d Vellore, S. India, 8 Oct '01.

29 Nov 1795      Hugh ('Little Hugh'or Murdoch Hugh) MacLean (sister's son);Ensign, 73 Ft: Lt-Col., 1822; d'28.

23 May 1799     +Hector MacLean (sister's son); Ensign, 19 Ft; Lt 1802; k. Ceylon 26 Jun '03.

23 May 1799     +Lachlan MacQuarrie (chief s son); Ensign, 86 Ft; Captain, 1806; d. Goa, 23 Mar '07.

1 Sep 1800       John (or John Lachlan) Macquarie (son of Allan, Ballighartan); Ensign, 77 Ft.

24 Sep 1802     Archibald MacLean (Lagganulva, chiefs grandson); Ensign, 77 Ft; Captain, 1812; d. of wounds, Ceylon

 

Anxious to help his old chiefs second family, he picked out the son Hector (who was an officer in the Argyll Fencibles under Lochbuie) for advancement. ¹⁶ His own sister and Farquhar MacLean's family in Oskamull included three sons. Finding that Murdoch, the eldest, was already provided for, as a lieutenant in the 37th Foot, Lachlan wished that the ensigncy intended for him should go instead to the next brother Hugh, or else to Loch­buie's son of the same name; in order to entitle him to all of what was by then several years of back ranks and pay it was arranged that he should take the names Murdoch Hugh and fill Murdoch's place 'without injury to anyone'. ¹⁷

Lachlan had several other young relations in mind, and asked Lochbuie to have them 'kept close at school' to qualify them for an army life and enable them to 'appear as gentlemen'. In the period between his wife's death and his leaving India in 1802, Lachlan was able to sponsor several more proteges - two of his own clan (again including one of the chiefs sons) and two more Macleans. ¹⁸ 'I think I have now done pretty well in this way for my young friends,' he wrote to his brother Charles shortly before leaving Bombay, 'and have succeeded, from first to last, in providing for more of them than my Rank or situation in life entitled me to expect; but now my interest in this country is at an end.'¹⁹

That he had in fact gone too far emerged later when a blazing row blew up between him and the Horse Guards on the discovery that two of his nominees were five-year-old boys. Army regulations required candidates to be certified as at least 16 and fit to join the branch of the service proposed; ²⁰ but it was not unknown for senior officers to put their sons' names in at birth in order to gain them seniority. The two youngsters were Lochbuie's second son John and brother Charles's 'hero Hector'. A letter with an Oban postmark signed 'A Patriot' had blown the gaffe on the imposters, and after a lot of dubious explanations by Lachlan the irregularity was laid before the Duke of York. Their names were struck off the list and permission was refused to sell their commissions.²¹

Lairds in Mull

Although he clearly had no relish for a life of 'obscurity' in Mull, Lachlan was eager enough to become a Mull laird. His finances were now substantial, with prospects of prize money from the renewed war with Tippoo Sultan of Mysore, and his thoughts turned to the possibility of helping to relieve his uncle's debts by buying part of the Lochbuie estates from him. 'I am ambitious to become an Argyll freeholder,' he was writing as early as 1790, 'and if I make a few lacks of rupees in the course of the war, no man could be more happy as a laird in Mull than me.' ²²

The wish and the opportunity fitted neatly with the time, though it was to be some years before Lachlan would see as laird the lands he was about to acquire. In the first months of the new century he estimated his fortune at some £10,000, with the prospect of an increase to £15,000 if he remained in India three years longer. The sum included his wife's fortune of £6,000, without which he declared he could never have been a rich man. 'I would not wish,' he wrote, 'to invest the whole of my Fortune in land, tho' I have no objection to the greater part of it being laid out in that way.'²³ His idea was to buy a snug little estate in Mull or some other part of Argyll; he thought the east side of the island by far the more beautiful, but he had no objections to the rugged west coast which faces towards Staffa and Ulva, and he was in fact 'very indifferent as to the exact spot.' ²⁴

It was Lachlan's canny maxim never to be in debt to anyone, 'even for lands',²⁵ and he gave his brother directions about purchasing a lot of Lochbuie's estate for him if the sale could be postponed until he could realize his funds in England.²⁶ As it happened, he and his brother were able to discuss the matter when they met in Egypt in 1801 after more than a dozen years separation, each arriving with one of the contingents sent to clear the French out of Egypt; Lachlan came from India as Sir David Baird's adjutant-general, and Charles from the Mediterranean in the Black Watch under Sir Ralph Abercrombie. Charles was wounded in the Battle of Aboukir (March 1801) in which Abercrombie was killed, and Baird arrived too late to join in the campaign. The brothers had the pleasure of nearly a month in each other's company before Lachlan had to return to Bombay.²⁷ When Charles got back to Scotland, he set about arranging the purchase of a block of Lochbuie lands south of the narrow isthmus between Salen on the Sound of Mull and Gruline at the head of Loch na Keal; besides money of his own, his brother's fortune was transmitted from India in time to complete the transaction before the end of 1802.²⁸

The larger portion of the area, including Gruline and Torlochan, the crofts of Salen, Callachilly, and farms of Kilbeg, Godully (Gaodhail) and Bentalla (Beinn Talaidh) between Loch Ba and the River Forsa, stretched from Salen Bay to Glen More, and made an estate for Lachlan of more than 10,000 acres, to which he gave the exotic name of Jarvisfield in memory of his 'heavenly angelic wife'. The lesser portion, which Charles more conventionally called Glenforsa, comprised Pennygown (where he made his home) and another farm on the sound of Mull, with the Green Islands (Eileanan Glasa) in mid channel, and the farms of Corrachy, Rohill, and part of Benvarnoch above Loch Spelve. Sasine was given of these lands on 3 May 1804.²⁹ Lachlan, now based in London as an assistant adjutant-general, managed to get two months' leave to visit Scotland and reached Mull in time to be with his old friend and patron Lochbuie for the week before his death on 5 July. Then he spent two nights under his mother's roof at Oskamull, after an absence of more than 16 years, visited his old chief at Gribun, and was back at Lochbuie in time for Murdoch's funeral, after which old MacQuarrie presided at a dinner for relations and guests in the hall of Castle Moy.

There was a happier occasion some ten days later, when the Macquarie brothers had a 'pleasant and romantic' ride on their new estates and walked over the principal parts of the farms at Callachilly and Kilbeg with their factor Dugald McTavish, who was to oversee Jarvisfield and Glenforsa in their absence and collect the rents punctually. The day ended with a'christening party' at Callachilly Inn, when 19 people sat down to dinner and toasts were drunk to the memory of Lachlan's wife and to the health of the two new 'Mull lairds'.³⁰ It must have been a triumphant homecoming for the wandering soldier.

After another spell of service in India, Lachlan Macquarie was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 73d Regiment. By the last-minute withdrawal of a superior, he found himself destined to succeed the notorious Captain Bligh as governor-in-chief and captain-general of New South Wales and its dependencies. Having married again, to Elizabeth Henrietta Campbell of the Airds family, he sailed from England in May 1809, took over at Sydney on 1 January 1810, and ruled the colony for almost twelve years with vigour and vision, although with a high-handed manner which made him enemies.³¹

The enthusiasm with which the distant governor kept in touch with the details of his affairs in Mull is remarkable. To read of the energy which he devoted to the growing colony, as it emerged from the status of a mere penal settlement, leaves the impression of a man who can have had no moment to spare from such an exacting task; yet scarcely a letter goes to his brother in Mull which does not discuss their mutual interests there.

After less than five months in office, Lachlan decided to save some of his salary and allowances to enable him 'to add a few more farms to my Estate of Jarvisfield'.³² There is much talk of improvements, and he is anxious to plant trees wherever possible; in one case Charles is to watch the success of a neighbour before 'starting on the heights', while in another he is instructed to try out a plan for pasturing sheep which had been adopted in New South Wales. Gifts arrived as well as advice: a pair of black swans for Loch Ba or the River Forsa, and a box of Norfolk Island pine plants for Gruline and Pennygown.³³

Although his acres take up much attention, the clan is not forgotten. When Charles took their centenarian chief to live with him at Glenforsa, Lachlan offered to pay 'half the expense of any loss you may eventually sustain by his residing there during the remainder of his declining years'.³⁴ When his wife presented him with a son and heir, the governor's first reaction (with a curious mixture of pride and unaccustomed humility) was to hope that the infant 'would at a future period prove an ornament to the ancient Clan Macquar­ie; which, perhaps in him, may yet make a figure in the world'.³⁵ And one day in 1814 Charles received from Sydney an effusive letter in which his brother proposed to nominate him as his successor as governor: 'What a proud thing it would be,' commented Lachlan, 'to have two Brothers succeed each other as Governors of this immense Continent; which must one day or other be one of the greatest and most flourishing Colonies belonging to the British Empire! I say, then, what a proud and glorious thing for our family and to our name to have two brothers succeed each other as Governors of such a Country !!!'³⁶

History tells, of course, that Macquarie's dream did not materialize; that, in fact as the critics of his administration closed in, he would hardly have asked the worst of them to succeed him, far less his well-loved brother. As the end approached of his period of 'transportation'³⁷ (one of the very few pieces of humour to be found in his correspondence), he looked forward to spending the rest of his days 'in tranquility on Jarvisfield'.³⁸ He proposed to build a handsome new house at Gruline the moment he got home; and he claimed that one day he trusted to see Salen on the Sound of Mull became 'a very popular, thriving and respectable village - and renamed Port Macquarie.' ³⁹

There is one last great battle for acres, crowned with success but followed by disappointment. Lachlan has set his heart on owning the farms between Gruline and Laggan­ulva, opposite their ancestral island. He knows that the owner, the extravagant sixth Duke of Argyll, 'does not care a fig for lands in Mull'; he is worth £21,000, and Charles risks his brother's displeasure by securing them for him for an extra £1,000. 'You have really fought a noble battle for me,' writes Lachlan, 'and I can never be sufficiently thankful for your successful efforts .... '⁴⁰ But depression comes as the weary final years of Macquarie's reign in Australia drag to a close: Commissioner Bigge comes, criticizes His Excellency's administration, misspells his name, and departs; Brisbane arrives to take over, and Macquarie is at last free to return home, eager to defend himself against his detractors.

Back in England by July 1822, Lachlan found times so bad in the Highlands that no rents could be collected, and his own funds were running low. He would resell his latest acquisition if he could get his money back; he is ready to content himself with 'a decent respectable mansion' at Gruline, a castle being now out of the question; then 'I greatly fear I must give up for the present all idea of building even a Cottage at Gruline', and he asks merely that the old house be made watertight and the windows glazed.⁴¹ A 'greatly prized' gift of a set of Sir Walter Scott's works, from the author himself, was to be one of the ornaments of the house.⁴²

Finally, after a brief tour on the Continent for the sake of his wife's health, it was a peevish old man who returned to London, in low spirits because of 'the injustice done me on all hands' and harassed by financial worries, with less than a year to live. He hated the 'great Metropolis' and travelled north by one of the Leith smacks, not being able to afford going by land: 'in these hard times I must be an Economist whether I will or no.' ⁴³

One last winter the general spent on his estates in Mull, under the patched-up roof of the old house at Gruline. When spring came he made a round of visits, went to Tobermory to pay his debts, and explained in detail all the modest improvements that he had planned but would never carry out himself. To clear up his affairs he must return once more to London, and he bade farewell to 'my dear Charles' at Achnacroish, hard by the ruins of Duart Castle, on 16 April 1824. In so doing he said good-bye to Mull and the estates to which he had given so much thought and care; as a link with the clan of which he was so proud he took with him his nephew the 'hero Hector', paying all his expenses and giving him 'a good deal of wholesome advice'.⁴⁴

In London he spent much of his time trying to secure an appointment for Charles, and in hawking his brother's lands for him. But, he reports, the great men and 'rich Indians' whom he coaxed to make purchases on Mull 'all fight shy, and will have nothing to do with Lands in Islands!'⁴⁵

After walking back to his lodgings in the rain from one of his visits, he had to take to his bed, from which on 21 June he wrote his brother a letter, full of omissions and misspellings, but ending affectionately with wishes of 'love to all around you'. Ten days later he was dead. They brought him back to Gruline, where he rests beneath a fine mausoleum with a grandiose inscription commemorating him as 'the Father of Australia'. It is said that the sound of his carriage is sometimes still heard driving past to the door of the old house, and the ghost of the old laird returns to his familiar haunts. 'That'll be Macquarie,' they whisper - a name not yet forgotten, although nearly two centuries have passed since he came to Gruline as its owner.⁴⁶

Lord of Ulva's Isle

The enlarged estate of Jarvisfield stopped just short of the clan's ancestral island, but nearly half a century had passed since the old MacQuarrie chief lost it before Ulva itself returned to clan ownership.

After serving 20 years in the army, including a strenuous campaign in the [Iberian] peninsula and the weary retreat to Corunna under Sir John Moore, Lachlan's brother Charles retired in 1811 on failing to get the command of the 42nd Regiment.⁴⁷ A year later he married an Edinburgh girl about half his age, Marianne Willison, whose father George had been a portrait painter and acquired a fortune in India.⁴⁸ She seems to have had no ambitions to become 'Lady Governess of New South Wales', as her brother-in-law suggested,⁴⁹ and they were content to settle down to manage the family estates and raise a growing family. Although sad experience taught him that buying lands did not add to a man's comfort and riches, it was not long before Charles was discussing plans with his brother for adding to his own estate in Mull.⁵⁰ In 1821 Charles bought the lands of Duart or 'Torosay proper' and some farms round Loch Don and at the north end of Loch Spelve from the representatives of the extravagant sixth duke of Argyll.⁵¹

By these purchases Charles added to his property on the eastern side of Mull facing the mainland, but Lachlan had not been without hopes of his brother becoming laird of Ulva, of which Ranald MacDonald's hold was plainly loosening.⁵² 'Through your knowledge of country business and of the particular value of Ulva, and its capabilities, you could actually make more of it than any other man in Scotland', he assured Charles. 'I do therefore most strongly and earnestly recommend you to make a push for it and become purchaser and proprietor of the estate of our ancestors! How proud I should feel to be able to hail you Laird of Ulva, or as Campbell the poet's song goes, 'Lord of Ulva's Isle'.⁵³

Lachlan had been pressing his brother to purchase Ulva since 1819, but in the end this ambition was not to be fulfilled in his lifetime. He considered the upset price of £42,000 to be out of the question, but thought Charles should not hesitate a moment if itcould be had for £35,000.⁵⁴ Sir Henry Steuart of Allanton, who had bought it from his son-in-law's creditors a little more than three years before, was willing, and Lt-Colonel Charles Macquarie of Ulva was duly given sasine of the estate on 9 December 1825.⁵⁵ Little Colonsay, Inchkenneth and Staffa, which had belonged to Ranald MacDonald, were not included in the sale, but the list of lands in Ulva itself is repeated from earlier records, as far back as the 'retour' of 1630, nearly two centuries before, with only some slight variations in spelling.⁵⁶ He took over a'large and commodious' mansion house, a garden well stocked with fruit trees, and an estate of nearly 5000 acres with more than 250 arable and 160 of plantations, a rental of nearly £1150 a year and a further £600 from kelp.⁵⁷

One of the new owner's first duties was to make over the lands of Ardeli or Ardallum for the building of a new church and manse to the 'Commissioners for building additional places of worship in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland', an official body whose existence requires some explanation.⁵⁸ The huge extent and difficulty of travel in many Highland parishes led to the building of some 40 new churches and manses in the 1820s, based on designs by Thomas Telford and known as 'parliamentary' churches, as they were paid for out of a government grant under acts passed in 1823 and 1824. Five of the sites selected by the appointed commissioners were in Mull and its adjacent islands, and all were completed by 1828: at Tobermory and Kinlochspelva, Ulva and Iona, and a manse and enlargement to the church at Salen.⁵⁹ Ulva's T-form church, with its splendid pine pulpit incorporating a precentor's desk and heavily moulded sounding-board, will be remembered as a whole before part of the interior was converted into a community hall after the Second World War.⁶⁰ The foundation stone had been laid 'with becoming solemnity' by Colonel Macquarie in September 1826, prayer was offered up by the Rev. Neil MacLean, missionary minister at Ulva, and a Gaelic invocation was recited by John Currie already mentioned, one of the long line of schoolmasters appointed by the Society in Scotland for the Propogation of Christian Knowledge, who was here fulfilling the bardic role of the MacVurichs to whom he may have been related. ⁶¹

Ulva had been served by a series of missionary ministers since 1810. Neil MacLean was the fourth of these, appointed in 1826 and ordained to the ministry, and admitted to the newly completed church in August 1828;⁶² he was thus qualified to administer the sacraments as some of those who had previously stood in for the minister were not. He opened a separate register of baptisms and marriages for Ulva, which is now kept with the Old Parish Registers of Kilninian and Kilmore in Edinburgh. His translation into Gaelic of the Rev. Dr. John Barr's Baptismal Catechism was published in 1836.⁶³

The Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843 does not seem to have created much stir in Ulva. The Free Church schooner Breadalbane is known to have called and landed a minister there during one of her voyages in 1847, but by that time MacLean had moved to Halkirk in Caithness to replace a minister who had joined the Free Church, and Ulva had become a parish in its own right.⁶⁴

But we are running ahead of the brief Macquarie reign in Ulva. When Colonel Charles became laird he was a married man with three sons, aged ten, nine and seven years old, and two daughters. Another son was born in 1828, but this was a sad and anxious year for the family, as the younger daughter died in April and her mother in September.⁶⁵ But there were wider ties also to be considered, and with the death of the centenarian chief under his roof in 1818, and of the most distinguished member of the clan in 1824, there were some who looked on the laird of Ulva as the leading man among the MacQuarries. He is even thought to have had some pretension in that direction, for it has been said that he 'offered John of Ballighartan a handsome sum of money if he would relinquish his claim to the chiefship, which John refused saying, Ged tha mi bochd, tha mi uasal' (although I am poor, I am of good family).⁶⁶ The old chief had outlived all his sons, but his eldest daughter Marie survived, and may have regarded Colonel Charles as her nearest relative in the male line.⁶⁷ And the arrival at Duart of a box of apples as a present from a James Whary or McWharrie in the Lowland parish of Lesmahagow, whose family tradition traced his descent from MacQuarrie of Ulva in the 16th century, indicates that others too may have looked on him as their chief. 'In directing the box to Duart,' the Colonel wrote in his acknowledgment from Ulva, 'you were not aware of my having sold that place in order to get this place, which has been, till within these last few years, in the possession of the Clan Macquarie for thirteen hundred years' - a bold claim indeed.⁶⁸

Besides his immediate family and his clan, Charles Macquarie also had responsibility as landowner to his Ulva tenants, who lived chiefly by raising cattle, fishing, and kelp-making.⁶⁹ Among the 70 or so family groups there were still seven or eight MacQuarrie families listed in a rental of 1824: in Cragaig (John), Glacgallan (Lachlan and 'Widow Macquarrie'), Aboss (Malcolm and Donald), Ferinanardry (Hector and his son, and Guaire), and at Salen Ruagh (Neil, perhaps the innkeeper). Nineteen MacQuarrie sub­tenants are listed in a rental of 1834 (See Fig. 5), and two years later Murdoch Macquarie was still in Cragaig, and John Macquarie, schoolmaster, in Ferinanardry. As well as those bearing the clan name, some of those with patronymic surnames, such as MacDonald, MacCallum and MacNeil, may well have been of MacQuarrie ancestry.⁷⁰

Not much is known of Colonel Charles's way of running the estate, but two fragments dating from 1833 give a glimpse of an easy-going landlord. Duncan Darrach in Baligortan, whose croft was rented at £11, had it brought down to £9 by two successive annual reductions; 'others are wanting it,' the laird explains, 'but as you spoke to me about it long ago you may have it'. His brother Donald was to have gone over to Glenforsa, but if he is not off yet another is ready to go, and 'it is a pity he should lose his wages'. To Donald Macquarie [son of] Torquil, Abos, the laird writes, 'Donald, I am always well pleased when people wish to know how their accounts stand'; he has his croft £9 rent, but if he is to move he must let Colonel Macquarie know immediately, 'as others will be glad to have your croft if I give it at £9, to which I have reduced it to help you, but I do not mean to give it to others at that rent'.⁷¹

Charles was still proprietor of the Glenforsa lands, for which he had failed to find a buyer, but he seems to have preferred to live in Ulva.⁷² When Glenforsa was offered for sale in 1830, he told Lochbuie sadly, 'alas, not a creature appeared, and Heaven alone knows what is to become of my matters'.⁷³ He seems to have borrowed heavily in order to buy Ulva, no doubt expecting to be reimbursed by the sale of Glenforsa. In 1830 he vested his lands in trustees (one of them, curiously enough, being the spendthrift 'hero Hector', sometime lieutenant in the 98th Regiment, 'now residing with me at Ulva') for the benefit of his children, who were now coming to school age; but when he wished to apply the proceeds for the education of one child preferably to another, his wife's family objected and the courts found against him.⁷⁴

Figure 6. MacQuarrie sub-tenants on Ulva in 1834 (See n 69). Those with wages for kelp manufacture are indicated *; those supplying barley to the proprietor by +.

		rent
Ormaig	Hugh*	£10
	Alesander*	11
	Lachlan	11
Cragaig	Allan	5
	John*+	8
	Murdoch+	10
Glacgallon	Lachlan*+	6
	Archibald+	6
	John+	8
Aboss	Donald* [son of Torquil]	10
	Donald, senior	5
	John, junior*	5
Soriby	Donald*	15
Ferinanardry	Donald*	5
	Hector	5
	John, schoolmaster	3	/10/0
Ardallum	Hector*	5
Salen Ruadh	Neil	2	/10/0
	Archibald	2	/10/0

 

Charles had social and business interests beyond his island properties, which took him to Edinburgh and even to London. He had been a member of the Highland Society of Scotland since 1796, and was consulted on piping matters by its sister society in London, of which his brother was a member;⁷⁵ he also joined the Celtic society, founded in 1820 for the preservation of our ancient Gaelic culture.⁷⁶ Less easy to explain is his appointment as one of the twelve original directors of the Commercial Bank of Scotland in 1820,⁷⁷ but as brother of the governor of New South Wales it was not inappropriate that he should join some of the promoters of that bank in the group which formed the Australian Company of Edinburgh and Leith in 1822 to run emigrant ships to the Antipodes, where the opening up of the country under Lachlan Macquarie had shown what opportunities awaited free settlers there.⁷⁸

When Charles died at Ulva House on 27 March 1835,⁷⁹ he left heritable debts amounting to £ 31,000, consisting of bonds over his lands, and personal debts of nearly £ 12,000.⁸⁰ Not surprisingly, the trustees found themselves in difficulties and quarrelled among themselves; ⁸¹ and when an agent went to Ulva to collect arrears of rent, he found the tenants not at all prepared to pay up all that was due, and no fewer than 38 of them had to be listed for sequestration proceedings.⁸² No wonder it was difficult to get buyers for lands in the Western Isles. 

Notes and references - Chapter 5, 'Father of Australia' - and brother Charles of Ulva.

Ltrs by General Lachlan Macquarie from several collections have been used in this chap. & are cited here. Most are in the National Library of Scotland, from the papers of his brother Charles formerly at Ulva House (Macquarie papers, NLS MS 3833) or the Scottish Record Office (Lochbuie Papers, SRO GD 174), & identified below as MP & LP respectively, with appropriate page or item nos. I've also quoted some letters in a private collection, but have not had access to the voluminous other material used by M.H.Ellis, Lachlan Macquarie - His Life, Adventures & Times(1952) & John Ritchie, Lachlan Macquarie - A Biography(1986), except as printed or cited by them. LM = Lachlan Macquarie, CM = Charles Macquarie, Lochbuie = MacLaine of Lochbuie. RWM

 

1. LM to CM, MP 95.

2. Ulva MS genealogy (see App. X below); Scottish Genealogist, xv, 29; ibid., xxxvi, 8-9. 3. See above Chap.

3, pp 31-2; LM wrote to General Allan Maclean from Bombay on 4 Jan 1789, 'without your benevolent, and generous friendly interest and good offices ... I might have died on Mull in obscurity'; and to Lochbuie on 15 Dec 1798, on hearing of the general's death, he described 'my dear and worthy friend' as 'a man next to yourself I owe more for my rise in life than to any other man now alive'. (Letters in private collection.) DNB mistakenly says he died in 1784. Seneachie, Clan MacLean, 356, says 1797.

4. For details and sources see Scottish Genealogist, , xxxvi, 7-8.

5. For his army career see Statement of Service, Sydney, 1 Oct 1811, in PRO (Kew), WO 25/747, M, part ii (last entry); DNB; Scot. Gen., xxxvi, 8; biographies by Ellis and Ritchie.

6. Ritchie, 20-1 for Lochbuie factorship (from LP); Lochbuie succession explained in Ritchie, 14-5; for Archilbald's fatal quarrel, see LP, no 137. Donald or Daniel Munro, who stood trial for murder but was acquitted, has been identified as eldest brother of Sir Thomas Munro, later governor of Madras (B.Stein, Thomas Munro (1989), 10-1).

7. Ellis, 4, 6-8 (quoting from LM's journal, not seen by author).

8. See especially M.H.Ellis and J.Ritchie.

9. Ritchie, 33-7. For epitaph quoted below, see RWM Lachlan MacQuarrie of Ulva, 25.

10. LM to CM, Bombay, 26 Jan 1800 (MP, 5).

11. LM to Lochbuie, Bombay, 31 Jan 1797 (private collection).

12. LM to Lochbuie, Bombay, 1 Jan 1794 (private coll.); Ellis, 45, 97; Ritchie, 34, 40.

13. Ellis, 36; Ritchie, 32; Scot. Gen., xxxvi, 9-10; Statement of Service, Sep 1809 ltr to Lt-Col Torrens, 3 Oct 1809, in PRO (Kew), WO 25/747, & pension application; K.M. Stewart-Murray, Marchioness of Tullibardine (later Duchess of Atholl), Military History of Perthshire (1908), i, 100-2, 432-5; Officers of the Black Watch (1952 edn), 65.

14. Statement of Service (1809), for these details.

15. Ellis, 97; and see fig. 4.

16. Scottish Genealogist, xvi, 48; J.Ritchie, 41.

17. LM to Lochbuie, 31 Jan 1797(pri. coll.); LM to CM, 26 Jan 1800 (MP, 7); Ellis, 97-8.

18. J.Ritchie, 41; see fig. 4.

19. LM to CM, 24 Nov 1802 (MP 31).

20. J.Ritchie, 4169-70; M.H.Ellis, 125-7; on children's commissions, see C.Dalton, Notes and Queries, 8th ser., viii, 421-3.

21. Ellis, 127; Ritchie, 72. Lachlan's usual way of referring to his nephew as 'the hero Hectoris rarely more exact, but in 26 Jan 1800 (MPT) he makes an exception by calling him 'your son Hector'; Hector must have been born c. 1795 & was probably illegitimate (Ritchie 41), U it is not know who was his mother (Ellis, 549 note28).

22. LM to Lochbuie, 20 Nov 1790 (priv. coll.); same, 26 Jan 1800 (MP, 5-6).

23. Ibid., 26 Jan 1800, (MP, 6).

24. LM to CM, 12 Mar 1800 (MP, 11).

25. LM to CM, 6 Nov 1816 (MP, 111-2).

26. LM to CM, 6 Nov 1816 (MP, 5-6).

27. M.H.Ellis, 112-3; J.Ritchie, 53, 56-8.

28. LM to CM, 8 Mar 1802 (MP, 22-3).

29. Argyll Sasines (abridgements, 1781-1820, nos 1535, 1537), on disposition by trustees of Archibald MacLaine of Lochbuie, 24 Jun 4 Jul 1803 for Gruline lands, 28 Nov 21 Dec 1803 for Glenforsa, sasines given 3 May 1804, registered 16 Jun.

30. M.H.Ellis, 121-4; J.Ritchie, 67.

31. Ellis & Ritchie, passim; Marion Phillips, A Colonial Autocracy (1909); for his 2nd marriage, see Scots Mag. (1807), lxix, 957; & sources cited in Scot. Gen., xxxvi, 16, n. 25.

32. LM to CM, Sydney, 10 May 1810 (MP, 40).

33. LM to CM, Sydney, 1 Dec 1812; 28 May 1814; 2 July 1815 (MP, 54, 80-1, 105).

34. LM to CM, Sydney, 30 Mar 1816 (MP, 109).

35. LM to CM, Sydney, 28 May 1814 (MP, 76). Young Lachlan was to prove no credit to the family (Scot. Gen. xxxvi 9).

36. LM to CM, 12 Oct 1814 (MP 95).

37. Ibid.

38. LM to CM, Sydney, 12 Oct 1814 (MP, 101). Mention of a visit to Ballindalloch on the Spey suggests that this was the kind of house Macquarie had in mind for Gruline.

39. LM to CM, Sydney, 30 Mar 1816 (MP, 109); 12 Oct 1814 (MP, 92).

40. LM to CM, Sydney, 30 Mar 1816; 6 Nov 1816; 8 Apr 1817 (MP, 108-9, 111, 113-6). The 6th duke, 'extravagant and foolish', was 'a dandy, a rake and a spendthrift'; familiar of George IV as Prince of Wales, he had to sell much of his inheritance, including much of Mull and all Of Morvern (Memorials of the Rev. Norman MacLeod (1818), 212; P.Gaskell, Morvern Transformed (1968), 23).

41. LM to CM, 7 Oct 1819; 7 May, 4 Sep 1820; 8 Aug 1822 (MP 117-8,124,128, 134).

42. LM to Sir Walter Scott, Sydney, 24 Nov 1821 (NLS, MS 3893, f. 165-6); thanks him for set of his works, which he hopes will ornament his library in the Isle of Mull, where he would be happy to welcome their author; sends in return a history of Michael Howe, bush­ranger of Van Diemen's Land, & hopes to send a better acccount of him & of the system.

43. LM to CM, 8 Sep 1822; 4 Aug 1823 (MP, 134, 142, 145, 147).

44. LM to CM, 4 May 1824 (MP, 151).

45. LM to CM, 27 May 1824 (MP, 155).

46. LM to CM, last letter, 21 Jun 1824 (MP, 156-7); the tradition was reported to RWM at Gruline House, 29 Apr 1939.

47. PRO (Kew) WO 25/747 ('M' part II, no 100), statement of service of Major Chalres Macquarie, 42nd Regiment and covering letter to Lt-Col Torrens, 3 Oct 1809.

48. Scots Magazine, lxxiv, 565. For Willison, see DNB, xx, 498; Bryan's Dictionary of Painters & Engravers (1905 edn) , v, 379; and Edinburgh MI in Ganongate Kirkyard.

49. LM to Cm, 12 Oct 1814 (MP 97).

50. CM to Lochbuie, 26 Nov 1818 (LP).

51. Argyll Sasines (abridgements 1821-30, nos 60, 61), 12 Jun 1821, reg. 25 Jun on dispostion by trustees of George William, 6th Duke of Argyll, and his trustee; see note 40 above; New Statistical Account, Argyle, 286.

52. See Chap.4, pp 62-3.

53. LM to Cm, 7 Oct 1819 (private collection).

54. Setup price at L35,000.

55. Argyll Sasines (abridgements, 1821-30, no 791), 9 Dec 1825, reg. 19 Dec on dispostion by Sir Henry Steuart of Alanton.

56. For Staffa purchase & Forman family, D.B.McCulloch, Wondrous Isle of Staffa (3d edn 1957), 35-6; Argyll Sasines(abrid'ts., 1821-30, nos 93-4), 24 Aug 1821, reg. 3 Sep.

57. LP no 1087/1, particulars c. 1824 (see n. 69 below).

58. Argyll Sasines (abridgements, 1821-30, no 1124), reg. 29 Jan 1828; church commissioners to get conveyance on 21 Jan.

59. Allan MacLean, Telford's Highland Churches (1989), insert between pp 16 & 17.

60. RCAHMS, Argyll Inventory, iii, 170, no 331, & pl. 35B-C. In 1937 the church had no flooring but long slats of wood underfoot, the laird's pew was no exception; several pew bibles had the signature of Francis William Clark of Ulva, one dated 1832 suggested he read or was learning Gaelic before he bought the island (in 1883 a witness before the Napier Comm. said he couldn't speak Gaelic when he first came); another Bible had the comment: 'Sep 30th, 17 in church, Jan 26th 24 - "Gone are the old familiar faces"'. The church bell was in a small ante-room, having been moved there recently because its position in the bell-cot had become dangerous (RWM's diary, 29 Aug 1937).

61. Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae, iv, 124; vii, 123; A.M.Sinclair, Clan Gillean, 488; Maclean, Telford's Highland Churches, insert between pp 16 & 17; Inverness Courier, 22 Nov 1826 (with Currie's invocation); G.F.Black, Surnames of Scotland (1946), 194, 569; D.S.Thomson in TGSI xliii 289-90, 295.

62. Fasti, iv, 76, 113, 122. 

63. D.Maclean, Typographica Scoto-Gadelica (1915), 8; translation published anony­mously as 'Le Aon de Mhinisteirean Mhuile', NLS copy inscribed 'To Mr MacLeod with Mr MacLean's complements'.

64. Rev. T.Brown, Annals of the Disruption (1881), iv, 43 from log in Missionary Records (1846), 552.

65. Ulva (Kilvickenwen) MI, in enclosure at west side of old kirkyard, where a wall plaque names Charles' widow and son George Willison; for their daughter, see Willison tombstone in Edinburgh (Canongate kirkyard). Charles' parents' and brothers' burial at Ulva is mentioned by Ellis, 207, and the headstone of their father's grave (not now at Kilvickewen) in Ritchie, 12, from their son's account in SRO LP 2172, f. 28b.

66. Letter by 'Fior Mhuileach' in Oban Times, 24 Aug 1940.

67. Deed by Marie, Mrs. MacLaine, in favour of Charles Macquarie, after the death of his father Col. Charles in 1835, in D.Deuchar, 'Genealogical collections relating to the family of McQuarrie' (MS loaned by Dr. Ian Macquarrie, Cockermouth, 1938).

68. CM to James Whary, Lesmahagow, Dec. 1827, per Ms. Neil M.McWharrie, Close­burn Castle, Dumfriesshire.

69. 1824 Rental in LP 1087/1, 'Particulars of the Estate of Ulva' (c. 1824, printed); 1834 rental in LP 1146/1; kelp manufacture (1834-35) in LP 1137/1,2 & 4; barley in ibid., 1136/1,2,3. That there was still some demand for the best kelp as late as Jun 1835 is shown by a ltr to Col. Macquarie from a firm in Whitehaven (Cumberland) in LP 1137/3.

70. LP nos 33, 1129, 1137; McWharrie MS (cf. note 68 above).

71. CM draft letters 18 & 26 Feb 1833, LP no, 1129.

72. Sir Andrew Halliday to CM, Hampton Court, 16 Aug 1827 (LP) suggested that if Charles could get a barrack mastership he could allow Ulva to remain 'at nurse' for a few years, or even let the house & shooting rights. The writer was domestic physician to the Duke of Clarence, later King William IV.

73. CM to Lochbuie 29 Jul 1830 (LP).

74. CM trust disposition & settlement (LP 33; also Argyll Commiserate Records SC 51/32/4, ff. 299-306, & register of Deeds, vo1527, f. 771); trustees included Hector Macquarie; the lands of Ulva & Glenforsa were left in trust & £5000 was left for the children, £3000 to the eldest son & heir male Charles, & £2000 to be divided equally among the three other sons & one daughter, upon their reaching the age of 21. On the Court of Session finding of the same year, Shaw's Session Cases, ix, 160.

75. Prize Essays & Trans. of the High. Soc. of Scot. (1807), iii 621; appointed one of a committee of four to consider merits of new bagpipe chanter constructed by Malcolm McGregor, by High. Soc. of London, A.Campbell in Piping Times, Sep 1950, 5. 76. Statement in Explanation of the Objects of the Celtic Society (1825), 26.

77. J.L.Anderson, The Story of the Comm. Bank of Scot. (1910), 90.

78. D.S.Macmillan, Scotland & Australia, 1988-1850 (1967), 10, 12; he calls Charles 'cousin' of the governor.

79. The Scotsman, 15 Apr 1835.

80. LP, no.36.

81. LP, no. 35, 1628.

82. Lochbuie to McLean & Giffen, 2 Mar 1836 (LP).