Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/310

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DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALASIAN BIOGRAPHY.
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election in 1874, and was appointed Solicitor-General on the reconstruction of the Francis Government, under Mr. Kerferd, in July of the same year, resigning office with his colleagues in August 1875. Mr. MacDermott, who was a staunch Conservative and Free-trader, remained in Parliament till 1877, when he was defeated at the general election in May, and did not re-enter politics. He was made Hon. M.A. of Melbourne University in 1867.

Macdonald, James William, son of the late Captain Archibald Macdonald, of 10th Hussars, and grandson of the first Lord Macdonald, in the peerage of Ireland, who claimed descent from the Lord of the Isles. He was born in 1811, and emigrated, in 1839, to South Australia, where he settled in the Sturt district. In 1841 he was appointed Commissioner of Crown Lands, and in 1844-5 was Colonial Treasurer. After acting as Visiting Magistrate in the north, he was for a number of years Magistrate at Burra, and ultimately Commissioner of Insolvency for four years. Retiring on a pension, he resided at the Sturt till 1880, when he returned to England, where he died in the suburbs of London, on Dec. 1st, 1881.

Macdonald-Paterson, Hon. Thomas, M.L.C., was born in Glasgow on May 9th, 1844, and educated in that city, arriving in Queensland in 1861. Having become a resident of Rockhampton, he was elected mayor of that town, and represented the district in the Legislative Assembly in the Liberal interest from 1878 to 1883, when he unsuccessfully contested the Mitchell district. He was, however, returned unopposed for Moreton in November of the same year; but resigned his seat in April 1885, on his becoming Postmaster-General in the Griffith Government, and accepting a seat in the Legislative Council as the Ministerial representative in the Upper House. Mr. Macdonald-Paterson, who possesses a large stake in the Mount Morgan mine, left the Ministry in August 1887, but continues to be a member of the Upper House. He was selected as one of the Queensland representatives to the Federation Convention held in Sydney in March 1891.

McDonnell, Lieut.-Colonel John, J.P., was born in Cork in 1829, and having emigrated to Australia entered the public service of New South Wales as clerk in the Immigration Department in Sydney in August 1854. After receiving several promotions he was entrusted in 1858 with the compilation of the general statistics of New South Wales, including what is now known as Queensland, in which colony he was appointed a clerk in the Police Department in Feb. 1860, becoming secretary and chief clerk in the same department in Oct. 1869. Having filled a number of other responsible offices in various departments of the Queensland Civil Service, he was appointed to his present post of Under-Secretary of the Post and Telegraph Department in July 1870, and became senior officer in command of the volunteer forces (honorary) in 1874, major commandant (also honorary) in 1877, and lieut.-colonel commandant in April 1878. In Nov. 1879 he retired from the command of the volunteer forces, and was placed on the staff with the rank of lieut.-colonel. In Feb. 1883 he was made Acting Commandant of the forces, but resumed his rank on the staff in Jan. 1884, on the arrival of Colonel French from England. He has been a member of the Immigration Board since 1872.

McDonnell, Hon. Morgan Augustus, eldest son of Michael Cypryan McDonnell, of Douay, France, entered as a student at Gray's Inn on May 1851, and was called to the bar in Jan. 1855. He emigrated to Victoria in 1864, and in the following year was elected to the Legislative Assembly for Villiers and Heytesbury. He was Attorney-General in the Sladen Ministry from May to July 1868, and in that of Mr. MacPherson from Sept. 1869 to Jan. 1870. Mr. McDonnell, who was the father of the well-known cricketer, immediately afterwards retired from public life, and died on Sept. 23rd, 1889.

MacDonnell, Sir Richard Graves, K.C.M.G., C.B., M.A., LL.D., son of the late Rev. Dr. Richard MacDonnell, Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, from 1852 to 1867, by a daughter of Dean Graves, Senior Fellow of Trinity, was born on Sept. 3rd, 1814, and educated at Trinity College, where he was Scholar in 1833, and graduated B.A. in 1835 and M.A. in 1838, being made honorary LL.D. in 1844. He was called to the Irish bar in 1838, and to the English in 1840. From 1843 to 1847 he was Chief Justice of the Gambia,

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