Transmitted in Scotland and in Australia on Australia Day (26th January) is a new documentary by Caledonia TV, The Father of Australia – followed on the 31st January by the 250th anniversary of the birth of the man himself, Lachlan Macquarie, the 5th Governor of New South Wales and the man who first proclaimed Australia Day, to mark the foundation of the colony.
Lachlan Macquarie was born into poverty on the island of Ulva, off the west of Mull – or possibly on the mainland near the island and maybe at Lagganulva where Bert Leitch of the Scottish National Farmers Union and his family now live and farm.
From there, via distinguished military service, Lachlan MacQuarie – whose wife was also form Argyll, became the Governor of New South Wales.
Lachlan Macquarie was born into a Gaelic speaking community in 1761, in the wake of Culloden and at a time when Gaels were despised. It was a time of war and Empire and, like many Highlanders, he was sent off to join the army at the age of 15 to make his way in the world.
He served against the rebels in the American War of Independence and fought Napoleon in Egypt – but it was India, where Macquarie served for two decades, that most shaped the future Governor.
Although he saw action in India against the Dutch and against the Indian leader Tippu Sultan, described by Tom Devine as: ‘the Saddam Hussein of his day’, Macquarie also learned the skill of colonial administration during this 20 year period on the sub-continent.
The documentary also follows the pilgrimage made in 2010 by the present, 37th, Governor of New South Wales, Professor Marie Bashir (below), to Mull and to the Macquarie Mausoleum there, to pay tribute to the 5th Governor. She said: ‘I don’t think he would believe the extent to which he is valued and acclaimed today. He’d be gratified but I think he’d be surprised.
‘I never cease to be grateful for that legacy. To stand so close to the mortal remains of someone who forged the beginnings of a very great country… It’s a tribute to him’.
Sydney’s Macquarie University was named for The Father of Australia and its Macquarie Room holds the Macquarie Archive.
This new documentary filmed in Scotland, in Australia and in India to reflect the many phases of Macquarie’s life – and Creative Director, Les Wilson (with the cast in the first ‘on set’ shot below), reports wryly, that the camera had to be wrapped up against the elements for filming in Sydney – because they had worse rain there than they’d experienced in Mull.
A progressive man for his time, Macquarie turned New South Wales from a dumping ground for convicts into the dynamic British colony which became Australia and which today is testing its colonial status.
As is so often the way of such things, Macquarie’s liberal views on penal reform were resented and resisted those who had settled in Australia of their own free will, who became his enemies and who worked – eventually successfully, to bring him down.
They say that all political careers end in failure and, vilified for what he had achieved, Macquarie left the colony with his reputation tarnished.
Among Lachlan Macquarie’s achievements and legacy was the creation of the colony’s first currency; the commissioning of a road through the Blue Mountains to vast tracts of arable land beyond – the basis of the country’s ongoing prosperity; and the founding of towns, a bank (Macquarie Bank) and numerous schools, including one for the native population.
While it is a tribute to his legacy, the hour-long programme is also a balanced look at Macquarie, who believed in the emancipation of former convicts and in ‘kindness and attention’ for the native people – but who was also responsible for what was then the worst recorded massacre of the Aborigines.
It is a portrayal of a leader who commanded respect and affection from the vast majority of colonists, while in effect being an absolute ruler – but who also fell foul of the upper echelons both at in Australia and back home in Britain.
At the root of his downfall was his progressive policy of accepting pardoned and time-served convicts back into the community, often to become drivers of the new nation. He failed to understand that, after the Napoleonic Wars – and with rising crime and political unrest – the British Government wanted to use the colony to instill terror in wrongdoers, rather than bring about redemption. 200 years later, the debate about being ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ on criminals still goes on.
Among those paying tribute to Macquarie are historians in Australia and Scotland. Professor Tom Devine says: ‘He really did found Modern Australia. It’s possible for Australians to look back at him and his efforts and say he was a good guy’.
Professor Grace Karskens, from the University of New South Wales and author of The Colony, says: ‘We need to understand Lachlan Macquarie and Elizabeth Macquarie on their own terms as human beings because that’s what makes this story gripping and tragic and astounding. I hate to see them turned into paragons of virtue. The real story is one of enormous ambition and huge tragedy because, in the end, he was vilified for all the things that he actually did achieve that we now recognise as his great legacy’.
Professor Karskens here introduces the character of Macquarie’s second wife, Elizabeth. The documentary is also very much the love story of Lachlan and Elizabeth, a feisty intelligent Highland woman from Airds in Appin in North Argyll.
Elizabeth matched her husband in this partnership which drove and shaped out a very particular new continent. They were Australia’s first power couple. Her influence on his two most important legacies – emancipation of convicts and architecture – was profound. Professor Alan Atkinson of the University of Sydney says: ‘I think that this marriage was fundamental to understanding what Macquarie did in New South Wales. He couldn’t have done it without her and she couldn’t have done it without him. It’s a partnership which was very creative’.
Caledonia TV’s documentary, looks at the Macquaries’ story from the perspective of their time and from that of today. Its case sees Clive Russell playing the man who forged a new way for the continent down under; and Julie Wilson Nimmo playing his influential wife Elizabeth. Mull descendant David Tennant provides the narration, time travelling yet again.
The Father of Australia was made by Glasgow indie Caledonia TV, with Sydney co-production partner, Intomedia, for BBC Scotland and the History Channel in Australia. Additional funding came from Screen Australia and Screen New South Wales.
The hour-long programme goes out on BBC2 at 9.00pm on Wednesday 26th January, Australia Day.
The photographs accompanying this feature show, from the top:
- Clive Russell as Lachlan Macquarie ion Caledonia TV’s The Father of Australia
- Macquarie Street – Sydney’s most famous, named for the 5th Governor.
- The walls of Tipu Sultan’s fortress at Seringapatam, India. Britain fought three wars against Tipu in its conquest of India. Macquarie’s diaries describe the eventual storming of Tipu’s fortress, defeat and death.
- Professor Marie Bashir, the 37th Governor of NSW lays flowers at the Mull Mausoleum of the 5th Governor – Lachlan Macquarie.
- Convicts disembark at Sydney.
- Caledonia TV’s Creative Director, Les Wilson, on location in Sydney.
- Meg Douglass, local Mull historian, at the Macquarie mausoleum. Megg believes that Lachlan’s marriage to Elizabeth Campbell if Airs in Appin ‘made him more human’.
- Clive Russell and Julie Wilson Nimmo as Lachlan and Elizabeth Macquarie on locations in the Blue Mountains, NSW
- On location outside Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney. Macquarie had the barracks built for convicts. The camera is well covered up as the unit had more rain in Sydney than when filming on Mull.
Loved the show, learned a lot about Macquarie I didn’t know.
Will certainly visit Mull next time I am in Scotland.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0