‘Macquarie’ by Grantlee Kieza delves into the life of divisive Lachlan Macquarie
He is accused of genocide yet credited with envisaging the nation we live in today — the home of a fair go. His name is everywhere, but do you know the truth about Lachlan Macquarie?
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In Australia, and Sydney especially, it is hard to avoid the name Macquarie … but nearly 200 years after his arrival, how many know the man behind it?
A Scotsman but also a self-described “awkward, rusticated Jungle-Wallah”; a reformer, an explorer, a harsh disciplinarian; a celebrated military officer; a man accused of genocide.
And a man who is credited with transforming a penal colony into the successful New South Wales of today — the first step in his vision for the creation of a nation.
The story of Major General, and Governor, Lachlan Macquarie is laid bare in News Corp journalist Grantlee Kieza’s newest book, Macquarie.
Kieza has since 2012 authored the biographies of five prominent Australians: General Sir John Monash, mother of bushrangers Ellen Kelly, aviator Bert Hinkler and bush poet Banjo Paterson, plus the Southern Cross flag itself.
That is on top of another nine books — eight sporting and one crime — to his name.
His subjects, all legendary people, were complex and divisive — and because they are long dead, as are those who knew them well, surely the task is hard?
“I don’t look upon the books as hard work. They are a wonderful hobby through which I get to peer intently into the lives of fascinating characters and visit some extraordinary places,” says Kieza, speaking from Scotland (where Macquarie was born in 1761).
He finds himself inspired by the characters, whose achievements and lives are so varied.
“John Monash remains an inspiration almost 100 years after his death, the story of a poor Jewish boy whose first language was German but who ends up commanding more than a quarter of a million men against the Germans on the Western Front and who helped bring about the end of World War One. Banjo Paterson was a joy to write because I got to swim in his wonderful words and Mrs Kelly was a reminder of the harsh life so many Australians went through in a new and strange land.”
Delving into Lachlan and wife Elizabeth Macquarie’s letters and journals, travelling to Scotland and reading crumbling newspaper reports made up a lot of the backgrounding for this book, but Kieza reveals he uncovered some interesting and more recent resources in the course of his research.
“While Macquarie’s time in Australia was the early 19th century it was also fascinating to read newspaper reports from decades later of people reflecting on having seen him during their childhoods in Sydney,” he says.
The Governor is a man Kieza has been fascinated by for a long time, explaining that when he arrived in Australia, things were not going to be easy for the celebrated soldier in British India and Egypt — but that Macquarie had big dreams for the fledgling nation.
“He inherited a penal colony in chaos from the infamous Captain Bligh and set about transforming it into his vision as the jewel in the crown for the British Empire and a land he wanted to be renamed ‘Australia’,” Kieza says.
About 50 years of age when he set foot on Sydney Cove, Macquarie, who was born on the island of Ulva in the unforgiving but beautiful Inner Hebrides, could not have been further away from home.
Macquarie had known struggle from his early years on the windswept island inhabited by starving crofters and planned to give the Prisoners of Mother England a second chance.
“While his masters in the British Government wanted New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land to be places of terror and torment for the refuse of the British prison system, Macquarie saw a land of opportunity. He saw its potential as an economic powerhouse and the home of a fair go.”
One wonders what the imposing Governor Macquarie would have thought of Kieza’s appraisal of him, in acknowledging his great achievements while refusing to shy away from his most hideous crimes, among them, the 1816 Appin Massacre, where he ordered a violent raid on a group of Dharawal people camped at Broughton Pass. Following the beheading of a group of men camped nearby, at least 14 people jumped to their deaths from a cliff to escape the bullets and horses’ hooves.
It was all in an attempt to secure prime land outside Sydney by removing “hostile natives”.
“Macquarie is one of the most important figures in the development of Australia but also a controversial and divisive one,” Kieza says.
“On one hand he made a plea for the fair, even benevolent, treatment of Aborigines, but when pressed ordered that rebellious ones among them be shot and hung from trees — a command that haunts his legacy to this time.”
Macquarie, by Grantlee Kieza, is published by ABC Books and is out now.
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