Exploring the past

by Janet Houtzaager

Alexander Macdonald, felon and farmer, was born in
Scotland in about 1796, the son of Margaret Reid and an
unknown father. He received no schooling and was not bred
to a trade.

By 1811 Alexander was living with his mother and her
husband John White, a baker, in Weirs Close, Canongate,
Edinburgh. Unfortunately, his mother was supplementing
the family income by receiving and selling stolen goods,
which did not set him on the path to becoming a law abiding
citizen. Late on New Years Eve and during the early hours
of New Years Day 1811/12 he was one of a large number of
youths who roamed the streets of Edinburgh near the Tron
Kirk, knocking down Gentleman returning home from New
Years Eve celebrations and robbing them of their hats,
handkerchiefs, watches, purses and anything else they had in
their pockets.

Alexander was soon arrested and taken to the Tolbooth

Prison. On 31 March 1812 he stood trial and was convicted
of Robbery and sentenced to transportation for life. He was
transferred to the Prison Hulk Retribution at Woolwich and
then to the convict transport Fortune, which sailed from
England in December 1812.

The Fortune arrived in Sydney in June 1813 and her cargo
of convicts were disposed of in a variety of ways.
Alexander, aged 17, was sent to Edward Miles, an
emancipist who was farming near present day Minto and
who had applied to be assigned a servant.

At that moment, his fate hung in the balance. Many convicts
failed to adapt to life in the colony. They ran away from
their masters, committed further crimes and were destined to
be flogged, sent to an iron gang or hanged. Something in
Alexander however enabled him to successfully make the
transition from wayward youth to obedient servant. He
stayed with Edward Miles until 1819 when he obtained a
Ticket of Leave which enabled him to work on his own
account.

On 14 January 1822 Alexander married Sarah Warby, the 15
year old daughter of John Warby, an emancipist landholder
living near Campbelltown. His father-in-law gave him 20

acres of land as a marriage portion and Alexander became a
farmer.

Over the next twenty five years Alexander purchased some
additional land and Sarah bore him twelve children, two of
whom died in infancy but ten of whom thrived. However he
outlived the birth of his youngest child by only a few
months. He died on 28 February 1847 at the age of 50,
probably after a lingering illness as he had time to make a
will. He left some of the land he had acquired to Sarah for
life and the remainder to his children, to come into their
possession upon the youngest attaining the age of 21.

Alexander had been granted a Conditional Pardon in 1832
which restored to him all the rights of a free man save for
the right to leave the colony and he died a well-respected
citizen of Campbelltown. He was buried in the Presbyterian
graveyard which had been established some years earlier on
land he had donated to the church. Sarah would join him
there forty five years later.

Alexander’s sons received the education he had been denied
and some achieved renown. Alexander Cameron Macdonald
(1828-1917), accountant, surveyor and geographer and Peter
Fitzallan Macdonald (1830-1919), pastoralist, entrepreneur
and politician, appear in the Australian Dictionary of
Biography. John Graham Macdonald (1834–1918), explorer,
pastoralist and police magistrate published a journal,
‘Expedition from Port Denison to the Gulf of Carpentaria
and back.’ His remaining children became farmers or
farmers wives and raised large families.

No likeness of Alexander exists, but he must look out at us
from the faces of some of his children, who are depicted in a
picture compiled in 1912, one hundred years after he was
exiled from his home.

Select Bibliography

 Interviews conducted by Robert Smith Esquire,
Magistrate of Edinburgh with Margaret Reid
alias Macdonald alias White, Alexander
Macdonald alias White and John Grant, 1812,
various dates

 UK Prison Hulk Register & Letter Books, 1902-
1849

 Petitions to the Governor from convicts for
Mitigations of Sentences, Colonial Secretaries
Papers, New South Wales, 1788-1856

 Sydney Monitor, 4 July 1829

 The Sydney Morning Herald, 3 March 1847