Lachlan Macquarie - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Lachlan Macquarie was born on the island of Ulva off the coast of the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides, a chain of islands off the West Coast of Scotland. He carne from a Scotch clan, who had occupied Ulva, the Island of Mull, for nine hundred years, and his forebears were burled at Icolmkill. Governor Macquarle's father, was a "man of Intelligence, polite, and much of the world," attained the age of 103 years, dying on 4 January 1818. His mother was the daughter of a Maclaine chieftain who owned a castle on the Isle of Mull. He left the island at the age of 14. If he did attend the Royal High School of Edinburgh, "as tradition has it", it was only for a very brief period because, at the same age, he volunteered for the army.

Macquarie joined the 84th Regiment of Foot on 9 April 1777, travelling with it to North America in 1777 to take part in the American War of Independence. As a new recruit on the way to America he participated in the Battle of the Newcastle Jane. This battle was the first naval victory for a British merchant ship over an American privateer. He was initially stationed at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and was commissioned as an ensign five months after his arrival. On 18 January 1781, he was promoted to lieutenant and transferred to the 71st (Highland) Regiment of Foot, and served with them in New York, Charleston, and Jamaica. In June 1784 he returned to Scotland as a half-pay lieutenant. Three years later, on Christmas Day 1787 he received his commission as lieutenant in the 77th Regiment, where he saw service with the army in India and Egypt. Macquarie became a Freemason in January 1793 at Bombay, in Lodge No. 1 (No. 139 on the register of the English "Moderns" Grand Lodge). He was promoted Captain on 9 November 1789, Major on March 12 1801. During 1801 he had accompanied Sir David Baird and the Indian Army to Egypt, with the rank of Deputy Adjutant General, and was present at the capture of Alexandria and the final expulsion of the French Army from Egypt. Two years later, 1803, he was in London, as Assistant Adjutant General to Lord Harrington, who commanded the London district. In 1803 and 1804 saw him on active service in India. He returned to London in 1807, commanding the 73rd Regiment of Foot, and on May 8 was appointed Governor of Now South Wales and its dependencies, leaving for the colony on 22 May, 1809, in H M S. Dromedary, where he landed officially on 31 December 1809, at Sydney Core.

In 1793 he married Jane Jarvis, daughter of the Chief Justice of Antigua. Three years later she died of tuberculosis.