My dad refuses to go near a computer himself but was
thrilled when I told him all the fascinating things I'd found on your website about
Clan Ranald. He's given me a bit more information about our own McDonald forebears,
in Australia, which I hope might be of interest. My father, Donald Angus McDonald, is the great grandson of John McDonald who
was born in Scotland in 1802 and died in Bendigo, Victoria (Australia) in about
1897. (Date of death is a bit uncertain, with different records suggesting any year
from 1896-1899. Given the extreme longevity of all McDonalds in my father's family,
I'd err towards the later date!)
It is not known how or when John arrived in Australia, but
records show his son John was born in Adelaide, South Australia, in 1842. Adelaide was
settled in 1834 by English idealists hoping to design a model society, who were shortly
joined by German Lutherans and Scots who were forced to emigrate in the clearances.
John Snr was a Gaelic speaker who family tradition has it hailed from Clan Ranald lands in
the western highlands, so it is quite possible he was himself a victim of the clearances.
John Jnr was the first of 6 children born to John Snr and his
wife Mary Cavanagh. The others were Luke (b.1843?, died in Castlemaine, Victoria, in
1936), Angus, Archie, Ruth and Mary Jane, who married John Brown and settled in Maldon, in
the western district of Victoria. During the goldrush of the 1850s, John Snr made a
living by ferrying Chinese immigrants across from Robe in South Australia to the
goldfields in Victoria. At that time, before Federation in 1901, each Australian
colony had its own law and administration, and it was illegal for Chinese to enter
Australia directly to Victoria.
The family subsequently ran a supply store on the goldfields
where goods were often bartered for gold. My grandfather remembers stories of how
small nuggets were painted white and used to line the garden path, to disguise them until
the gold could be safely banked or sold on.
John Jnr married Margaret Burke Jennings, who was born
in Liverpool in 1854 and died in 1925. They had 11 children: Richard (died at
birth in 1872), twins Florence (called Flo, 1873-1967) and Fanny (1873-?), Phoebe
(b.1876), James (Jim, 1878-1947), Ruth (1880-1977), Archibald (Archie, 1882-1943), May
(1884-?), John Octavius (Jack, 1889-1984), Angus Richard (1890-1977), Leslie (Les,
1892-1954). Ruth and May never married, but Flo and Fanny both married farmers in
the western districts of Victoria - a Maynard and a Haw respectively.
John Jnr was what was called a 'free selector' - a small
farmer who worked land he had claimed that had not been co-opted by the wealthy
'squatters'. Many Australian Scots were ousted from their traditional homelands
during the clearances when Scottish land owners and clan leaders chose to use clan
lands to graze sheep, which require more acreage than humans do. Some of these same
Scottish landowners claimed large tracts of land in Australia, where they furthered their
ambitious sheep breeding projects, developing extremely high quality wool. For years
it was said that "Australia rides on the sheep's back" - ironically, poor Scots
forced to emigrate during the clearances were often direct beneficiaries of these
squatters' success, as very often they found employment working on these 'sheep
stations'. John Jnr was more likely a subsistence agrarian farmer than a pastoralist
however.
Apparently the McDonalds were not themselves Catholic, but
either Mary Cavanagh and/or Margaret Jennings were strongly Catholic. One day when
John Jnr was chopping wood a chip flew into his eye, and from then on his eyesight
deteriorated dramatically. All remedies were tried, and finally John took a trip to
Melbourne to see a specialist. He was told nothing could be done. In the train
on the way home, however, he was seated in a carriage with a priest. After some
hours of travel and much conversation (heaven help anyone stuck in a rail coach with a
McDonald!), John found his vision inexplicably began to clear. From then on recovery
was solid. Whether for this reason or not, John Jnr became profoundly religious - so
much so that the only reading allowed in the home was the Bible.
John Jnr spoke Gaelic and so it appears
did Margaret, but they made a point of not speaking Gaelic in front of their
children, so only a few phrases have passed down pidgin-fashion through my father to
me. To speak Gaelic was considered backward. (The highland Scots were regarded
as so wild and anti-social in the first half of the C19th that when shiploads arrived in
Victoria, they would be kept in holding camps until local authorities decided how and
where to disperse them. This was ostensibly for quarantine. As happened in
Canada, many Scots died in these camps after their arrival from infectious diseases, as
shelter, sanitation and healthcare were rudimentary.)
My grandfather Angus remembers extreme poverty as a boy,
living off wild melons and lard in hard times, on the edge of the mighty Murray River
which flooded regularly, leaving fish caught in the cane mesh of the furniture. The
fish were of course promptly eaten! As a young boy, Angus got a job for a local shop
owner called Gibson and at age 14 fell in love with Edie Gibson, his employer's
daughter. Edie also had Scottish heritage - her grandmother was Isabella Robertson
of Ballachulish, who had married Hugh McMillan. Despite some family
opposition Angus married Edie and eventually set up and ran 3 menswear shops of
his own, just over the border from Victoria in the Mt Gambier/Bordertown area of
South Australia.
Angus became very successful and purchased a grand house in
Mount Gambier called Schleswig Holstein - a perfect reproduction of a small German castle,
built in 1910 and perched on top of the hill overlooking the town. This is where my
father Donald Angus and his older sister Ila grew up. Angus was a town councillor in
Mount Gambier for 27 years, a war-time warden and an active Rotarian. When he died,
he donated land to the town council for a tourism centre to be built. When I visited
Mount Gambier in 1991 I was immensely touched that staff at the tourism centre still
remembered "Mr McDonald", and were kind enough to offer me a special tour of the
site.
My first child is due early next year, and if it's a boy I
hope to name him Alastair James or possibly Callum Angus, after my ancestor Callum
Beag. Callum's nickname 'Beag' (wee Callum) is a Gaelic joke - he was actually 6'
4" and a merchant who ultimately committed suicide when an uninsured trade ship was
wrecked en route back from the Far East. If it's a girl, I'd like to keep the
McDonald association, and will probably choose Isabella Amy.
My father would be tremendously pleased to hear from anyone
whose family line and ours might have crossed. Please feel free to email me any
time.
Best regards
Emily McDonald |