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Macquarie
A lively and engaging portrait of a towering and complex figure of Australian colonial history.
Lachlan Macquarie is credited with shaping Australia's destiny, transforming the harsh, foreboding penal colony of New Holland into an agricultural powerhouse and ultimately a prosperous society.
He also helped shape Australia's national character. An egalitarian at heart, Macquarie saw boundless potential in Britain's refuse, and under his rule many former convicts went on to become successful administrators, land owners and business people.
However, the governor's ambitions for the colony (which he lobbied to have renamed 'Australia') brought him into conflict with the continent's original landowners, and he was responsible for the deaths of Aboriginal men, women and children, brutally killed in a military operation intended to create terror among local Indigenous people.
So, was Macquarie the man who sowed the seeds of a great nation, or a tyrant who destroyed Aboriginal resistance?
In this, the most comprehensive biography yet of this fascinating colonial governor, acclaimed biographer Grantlee Kieza draws on Macquarie's rich and detailed journals. He chronicles the life and times of a poor Scottish farm boy who joined the British army to make his fortune, saw wars on five continents and clawed his way to the top. Ultimately, Macquarie laid the foundations for a new nation, but, in the process, he played a part in the dispossession of the continent's original people.
Lover, fighter, egalitarian, autocrat - Lachlan Macquarie is a complex and engaging character who first envisaged the nation we call Australia.
Lachlan Macquarie is credited with shaping Australia's destiny, transforming the harsh, foreboding penal colony of New Holland into an agricultural powerhouse and ultimately a prosperous society.
He also helped shape Australia's national character. An egalitarian at heart, Macquarie saw boundless potential in Britain's refuse, and under his rule many former convicts went on to become successful administrators, land owners and business people.
However, the governor's ambitions for the colony (which he lobbied to have renamed 'Australia') brought him into conflict with the continent's original landowners, and he was responsible for the deaths of Aboriginal men, women and children, brutally killed in a military operation intended to create terror among local Indigenous people.
So, was Macquarie the man who sowed the seeds of a great nation, or a tyrant who destroyed Aboriginal resistance?
In this, the most comprehensive biography yet of this fascinating colonial governor, acclaimed biographer Grantlee Kieza draws on Macquarie's rich and detailed journals. He chronicles the life and times of a poor Scottish farm boy who joined the British army to make his fortune, saw wars on five continents and clawed his way to the top. Ultimately, Macquarie laid the foundations for a new nation, but, in the process, he played a part in the dispossession of the continent's original people.
Lover, fighter, egalitarian, autocrat - Lachlan Macquarie is a complex and engaging character who first envisaged the nation we call Australia.
576 pages, Hardcover
First published October 21, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
December 14, 2019
This is an outstanding biography of a very controversial governor. Keiza tells a fascinating tale and doesn't shy away from his wars with the Aboriginal people. Even though the book takes half its journey before Macquarie gets to NSW, it's a very interesting tale of his wars in India, America and Egypt. His love life is startling too. Macquarie was 50 years old when he arrived in Sydney and had already lived a big life.
December 14, 2019
This is a well-researched, readable biography. Macquarie was a fascinating figure who did much to shape modern Australia. Highly recommended.
December 31, 2019
I have just finished reading this superb book which I consider to be the best Australian historical biography I have read. Congratulations to the author Grantlee Kieza on producing such a stunning book. I knew Macquarie was a major figure in Australian history, but I didn't realise that he occupied such a pivotal point and his influence is still felt today. You can't live in Sydney without regularly encountering his name on the many buildings, roads, rivers, towns and so on, which bear the name of Macquarie, but I had forgotten that he was the first public figure to refer to refer to the country as 'Australia'. He had a vision for the country that was not shared by everyone, particularly some in the British Government, which treated him appallingly badly. I thoroughly recommend it to everyone as an absorbing book to read and while you are at it, try some of Grantlee Kieza's other recent books including Mrs Kelly (the mother of Ned), Banjo and the best biography on General Sir John Monash.
April 27, 2020
Most Australians would have heard of Lachlan Macquarie - he is arguably the most effective Governor of colonial New South Wales and made sure his name was everywhere in the colony. However, most of us would know nothing of his back story - how he was born into poverty on the Scottish Isle of Ulva and rose through the army and service in America, the Caribbean and India, to become the colonial Governor. His vision for the colony was also his undoing as he came up against the entrenched views of some of the free settlers. He was a man of vision, but had his failings, which are also documented in this book.
Grantlee Kieza paints a fascinating picture of the man and his times. The biography is well-researched but also very readable. Highly recommended.
Grantlee Kieza paints a fascinating picture of the man and his times. The biography is well-researched but also very readable. Highly recommended.
January 16, 2020
Lachlan Macquarie's name is everywhere in Australia. This is a fascinating biography of a man with many strong points and many faults too. It is highly recommended
April 28, 2020
Biography at its best - his life before ‘Australia’ takes half the book; the whole is very readable and despite his failings he is presented as an impressive man earnest in his desire to do the best job he could - for himself and others - there is honesty in terms of his shocking errors of judgement relating to indigenous children and people, yet still his human fallibility including his pleasure in naming so much after himself combined with extraordinary vision for Australia makes his story so powerful. His love for his family is poignant and I felt sad for them in the end as well as impressed - really great read. The detail is comfortably weaved into the story.
February 9, 2020
It is a great read and explains how Australia was changed from a peal station to a full country giving a great future to all its residents
February 19, 2020
Very enjoyable
Review from The Australian newspaper
He stamped his name all over Sydney and was the first to use the word “Australia” in official documents. But, while we may think we know Lachlan Macquarie, many have only a partial sense of who the man was.
We know the city builder. We know the administrator who brought prosperity after the fraught years of William Bligh’s governorship. We know the egalitarian who harboured the shocking notion convicts could be rehabilitated, and who made enemies among Sydney’s “exclusives” by giving magistracies to former convicts.
But we are less well acquainted with the soldier of fortune. With the profligate spender, the grifter, the scion of an ancient Scottish noble house brought low. And we avert our eyes from his orchestration of the shameful Appin massacre.
In his historical biography Macquarie, Grantlee Kieza gives us one of the most nuanced portraits to date of the fifth governor of NSW. It’s an engagingly written story that is told partly by Macquarie himself. Kieza makes extensive use of journals and correspondence, but stops short of weighing the book down with long passages from primary sources.
There’s an immediacy and vibrancy to Kieza’s writing, particularly apparent in the early chapters on Macquarie’s service in Bombay and elsewhere. Here, he met his first wife and, as regimental paymaster, hatched a scheme to withdraw money, invest it and keep the interest.
Later, he would concoct a more imaginative fraud. He and his brother signed up child relatives — the youngest was five — to receive payment as British army officers on half-pay as reservists. When the army ultimately tried to call the boys up, Macquarie responded that they had gone to the West Indies to start a plantation. But a local informant brought the scheme to light and only Macquarie’s past cultivation of those in authority saved his career.
Macquarie’s contradictions are adeptly framed by Kieza, and it bears noting that his fraud involved a far higher monetary value than the crimes of many of those he would one day govern.
Portrait of NSW Governor Lachlan Macquarie, 1822, by Richard Read Snr. Picture: State Library of NSW
Portrait of NSW Governor Lachlan Macquarie, 1822, by Richard Read Snr. Picture: State Library of NSW
Money, and how to make more of it, seems to have been one of Macquarie’s chief preoccupations, but he didn’t spend it all on himself.
Kieza highlights his desire for family advancement, and much of the money he accumulated went to family members, together with commissions for relatives who were genuinely of an age to accept them. At the end of his governorship, his nephew, Hector, was his aide-de-camp.
The earlier parts of the book are shot through with snapshots of the colony Macquarie would eventually reach. He also meets the man who will turn out to be his predecessor, the pre-mutiny William Bligh, on his way to India. He forms a less-than-favourable impression, and Bligh’s arrogant behaviour when Macquarie eventually arrives in Sydney does little to change his mind. For all his bombast and ego, however, Bligh is among the most vibrant sketches in the book.
Macquarie was not always averse to some bombast and bluster of his own, and Kieza’s portrayal of his relationship with his two wives — Jane Jarvis, who died of tuberculosis, and Elizabeth Campbell, who accompanied him to Australia — helps to humanise him.
When he fell, he fell hard, and his correspondence shows tenderness and admiration for the inner qualities of each woman.
Tugging against the doting husband, though, is the ruthless enforcer of authority, and here is another contradiction — the man whose ancestors were brutalised and dispossessed by the crown was now brutalising and dispossessing the inhabitants of a new land on that crown’s behalf.
As Kieza writes, “He regarded himself as a benevolent dictator offering an olive branch to its native people, (yet) he still sanctioned terror and cruel death for any Indigenous person who would not recognise his absolute authority.”
The blackest mark on Macquarie’s record is the massacre he ordered at Appin, in response to attacks on settlers. At least 14 Aboriginal men, women and children were killed.
Kieza recounts Macquarie’s instructions to his troops: “In the event of the natives making the smallest show of resistance — or refusing to surrender when called upon so to do — the officers commanding the military parties have been authorized to fire on them to compel them to surrender; hanging up on trees the bodies of such natives as may be killed on such occasions, in order to strike the greater terror into the survivors.”
While he tried to impose his authority on the indigenous population, Macquarie was having trouble holding any sway over the colony’s exclusives. Kieza deftly shows the opposition swirling around him from various parties. One of these, churchman Samuel Marsden, was particularly vitriolic, offended by Macquarie’s appointment of emancipists to positions of power. John Macarthur, who returned from exile after his role in the coup against Bligh in 1808, became another foe.
Vituperative attacks on Macquarie reached the ears of Earl Bathurst, secretary of state for war and the colonies, at a time when the government was growing increasingly concerned at how much the colony was costing. John Bigge was sent to investigate, and the end result was a report highly critical of Macquarie’s administration and particularly his liberal policies towards emancipists.
By this point, Macquarie, in ill-health and reeling from the constant attacks of his enemies, was ready to go anyway. In 1822 he and his family left a very different Sydney to the one in which they had arrived, perhaps taking a last look at the lighthouse that, like so much else, Macquarie had named after himself.
Kieza’s book is an affectionate but unstinting look at a complex figure. Macquarie’s character, his flaws, his decisions good and bad, and the enmities that blighted his time in NSW are all evident here, and the result is a man who is far more human, and more fascinating, than many would expect.
Meg Keneally is a writer and critic.
Macquarie
Grantlee Kieza
ABC Books, 576pp, $39.99
Review from The Australian newspaper
He stamped his name all over Sydney and was the first to use the word “Australia” in official documents. But, while we may think we know Lachlan Macquarie, many have only a partial sense of who the man was.
We know the city builder. We know the administrator who brought prosperity after the fraught years of William Bligh’s governorship. We know the egalitarian who harboured the shocking notion convicts could be rehabilitated, and who made enemies among Sydney’s “exclusives” by giving magistracies to former convicts.
But we are less well acquainted with the soldier of fortune. With the profligate spender, the grifter, the scion of an ancient Scottish noble house brought low. And we avert our eyes from his orchestration of the shameful Appin massacre.
In his historical biography Macquarie, Grantlee Kieza gives us one of the most nuanced portraits to date of the fifth governor of NSW. It’s an engagingly written story that is told partly by Macquarie himself. Kieza makes extensive use of journals and correspondence, but stops short of weighing the book down with long passages from primary sources.
There’s an immediacy and vibrancy to Kieza’s writing, particularly apparent in the early chapters on Macquarie’s service in Bombay and elsewhere. Here, he met his first wife and, as regimental paymaster, hatched a scheme to withdraw money, invest it and keep the interest.
Later, he would concoct a more imaginative fraud. He and his brother signed up child relatives — the youngest was five — to receive payment as British army officers on half-pay as reservists. When the army ultimately tried to call the boys up, Macquarie responded that they had gone to the West Indies to start a plantation. But a local informant brought the scheme to light and only Macquarie’s past cultivation of those in authority saved his career.
Macquarie’s contradictions are adeptly framed by Kieza, and it bears noting that his fraud involved a far higher monetary value than the crimes of many of those he would one day govern.
Portrait of NSW Governor Lachlan Macquarie, 1822, by Richard Read Snr. Picture: State Library of NSW
Portrait of NSW Governor Lachlan Macquarie, 1822, by Richard Read Snr. Picture: State Library of NSW
Money, and how to make more of it, seems to have been one of Macquarie’s chief preoccupations, but he didn’t spend it all on himself.
Kieza highlights his desire for family advancement, and much of the money he accumulated went to family members, together with commissions for relatives who were genuinely of an age to accept them. At the end of his governorship, his nephew, Hector, was his aide-de-camp.
The earlier parts of the book are shot through with snapshots of the colony Macquarie would eventually reach. He also meets the man who will turn out to be his predecessor, the pre-mutiny William Bligh, on his way to India. He forms a less-than-favourable impression, and Bligh’s arrogant behaviour when Macquarie eventually arrives in Sydney does little to change his mind. For all his bombast and ego, however, Bligh is among the most vibrant sketches in the book.
Macquarie was not always averse to some bombast and bluster of his own, and Kieza’s portrayal of his relationship with his two wives — Jane Jarvis, who died of tuberculosis, and Elizabeth Campbell, who accompanied him to Australia — helps to humanise him.
When he fell, he fell hard, and his correspondence shows tenderness and admiration for the inner qualities of each woman.
Tugging against the doting husband, though, is the ruthless enforcer of authority, and here is another contradiction — the man whose ancestors were brutalised and dispossessed by the crown was now brutalising and dispossessing the inhabitants of a new land on that crown’s behalf.
As Kieza writes, “He regarded himself as a benevolent dictator offering an olive branch to its native people, (yet) he still sanctioned terror and cruel death for any Indigenous person who would not recognise his absolute authority.”
The blackest mark on Macquarie’s record is the massacre he ordered at Appin, in response to attacks on settlers. At least 14 Aboriginal men, women and children were killed.
Kieza recounts Macquarie’s instructions to his troops: “In the event of the natives making the smallest show of resistance — or refusing to surrender when called upon so to do — the officers commanding the military parties have been authorized to fire on them to compel them to surrender; hanging up on trees the bodies of such natives as may be killed on such occasions, in order to strike the greater terror into the survivors.”
While he tried to impose his authority on the indigenous population, Macquarie was having trouble holding any sway over the colony’s exclusives. Kieza deftly shows the opposition swirling around him from various parties. One of these, churchman Samuel Marsden, was particularly vitriolic, offended by Macquarie’s appointment of emancipists to positions of power. John Macarthur, who returned from exile after his role in the coup against Bligh in 1808, became another foe.
Vituperative attacks on Macquarie reached the ears of Earl Bathurst, secretary of state for war and the colonies, at a time when the government was growing increasingly concerned at how much the colony was costing. John Bigge was sent to investigate, and the end result was a report highly critical of Macquarie’s administration and particularly his liberal policies towards emancipists.
By this point, Macquarie, in ill-health and reeling from the constant attacks of his enemies, was ready to go anyway. In 1822 he and his family left a very different Sydney to the one in which they had arrived, perhaps taking a last look at the lighthouse that, like so much else, Macquarie had named after himself.
Kieza’s book is an affectionate but unstinting look at a complex figure. Macquarie’s character, his flaws, his decisions good and bad, and the enmities that blighted his time in NSW are all evident here, and the result is a man who is far more human, and more fascinating, than many would expect.
Meg Keneally is a writer and critic.
Macquarie
Grantlee Kieza
ABC Books, 576pp, $39.99
January 21, 2020
Grantlea Kieza perhaps lacks the literary flair of some other historians, but this is not a problem for this biography which is rich in facts and plainly tells the fascinating life, travels and pursuits of the unusual mix of swindler, social climber, diplomat, visionary and egalitarian that was Lachlan MacQuarie. An educational and entertaining read, particularly worthwhile for anyone who passes the many streets, landmarks and institutions named after Macquarie in NSW.
May 25, 2020
A brilliant piece of work from a master story teller
May 17, 2020
I found this book interesting to start with---obviously very well researched---but found the extraordinary amount of detail a bit tedious. However, for history buffs, this is a comprehensive account of Macquarie's life.
6.5/10
6.5/10
January 14, 2020
‘Fellow citizens of Australia.’
Before I picked up this biography, I knew little about Lachlan Macquarie’s life before he became governor of New South Wales in 1810. Macquarie was governor from 1810 until 1821, and played a leading role in the social, economic and architectural development of the colony. But there’s a dark side to that legacy as well.
First, some biographic details. Lachlan Macquarie (1762-1824) was born on 31 January 1762 on the island of Ulva in the parish of Kilninian in the Inner Hebrides, Scotland. He died on 1 July 1824 in London, England.
The first half of the book covers Macquarie’s early life: a poor Scottish farm boy who joined the British army to make his fortune. He saw service in North America, India and Egypt, was married (in 1793) and widowed (in 1796). Macquarie remarried in 1807. Following his appointment at governor, he and wife Elizabeth set sail for New South Wales on 22 May 1809, arrived in Port Jackson on 28 December 1809 and was sworn in as governor on New Year’s Day 1810.
Here I enter more familiar territory: Macquarie the autocratic governor, the builder, the administrator. Macquarie (whose name, and that of his wife Elizabeth) appears as place names across New South Wales and Tasmania. This is the Governor Macquarie I was taught about in the third quarter of the last century: benevolent, visionary, and a champion of emancipated convicts.
But I didn’t appreciate the impact of this nation-building on the Aboriginal people, many of whom were killed in conflict. I also didn’t know about some of his more questionable actions (such as adding relatives to the army lists).
A flawed hero. A man who laid a solid foundation for Australia’s move from penal country to nation but at the same time continued the dispossession of the country’s original inhabitants.
I’m glad I read this book, which draws on details from Macquarie’s journals. I’d recommend it to anyone interested in Australia’s journey from colony to nation.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Before I picked up this biography, I knew little about Lachlan Macquarie’s life before he became governor of New South Wales in 1810. Macquarie was governor from 1810 until 1821, and played a leading role in the social, economic and architectural development of the colony. But there’s a dark side to that legacy as well.
First, some biographic details. Lachlan Macquarie (1762-1824) was born on 31 January 1762 on the island of Ulva in the parish of Kilninian in the Inner Hebrides, Scotland. He died on 1 July 1824 in London, England.
The first half of the book covers Macquarie’s early life: a poor Scottish farm boy who joined the British army to make his fortune. He saw service in North America, India and Egypt, was married (in 1793) and widowed (in 1796). Macquarie remarried in 1807. Following his appointment at governor, he and wife Elizabeth set sail for New South Wales on 22 May 1809, arrived in Port Jackson on 28 December 1809 and was sworn in as governor on New Year’s Day 1810.
Here I enter more familiar territory: Macquarie the autocratic governor, the builder, the administrator. Macquarie (whose name, and that of his wife Elizabeth) appears as place names across New South Wales and Tasmania. This is the Governor Macquarie I was taught about in the third quarter of the last century: benevolent, visionary, and a champion of emancipated convicts.
But I didn’t appreciate the impact of this nation-building on the Aboriginal people, many of whom were killed in conflict. I also didn’t know about some of his more questionable actions (such as adding relatives to the army lists).
A flawed hero. A man who laid a solid foundation for Australia’s move from penal country to nation but at the same time continued the dispossession of the country’s original inhabitants.
I’m glad I read this book, which draws on details from Macquarie’s journals. I’d recommend it to anyone interested in Australia’s journey from colony to nation.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
February 22, 2021
Easy to read and engaging. I know so little about the history of my own country and this biography provided a helpful hook to hang future knowledge on.
October 17, 2020
Brilliant and honest portrayal of a visionary who shaped modern Australia.
June 18, 2022
The story of Lachlan Macquarie's life is a fascinating one. He started and finished his journey in the Western Isles of Scotland, but as a soldier and statesman the roads and seas that he travelled circled the globe. This is the first biography I have read of Macquarie, who became the governor of the young penal colony of NSW, and has left his name spread liberally around eastern Australia. We live in the city of Lake Macquarie, our youngest son attends Macquarie University in Sydney, and my parents have a holiday flat in Port Macquarie. But there must be dozens of other places that bear his name today, a name so well known we almost forget that is belonged to a real human being. This is a book well worth reading for anyone who wants to get a broad overview of the life of this extraordinary man, whose tombstone on the island of Mull bears the inscription, "Father of Australia." Now to the next book on my shelf about Lachlan and his wife Elizabeth, a recent one by John Harris called "Judging the Macquaries."
March 22, 2023
Quite a long "read" but very interesting to find out about the "accidental" Governor General who had such a huge and positive impact on the foundation of Australia (the name he preferred to refer to it as) - It covered his early life and trails and tribulations as part of the Colonial Army of the British Empire and the cultural climate that was present at the time. We can look back with our new empathy and compassion but rightly (and with hindsight) often wrongly they, including Macquarie, "did what they did". It also showed the differing "class-driven" attitudes that exited on both sides of the World, and that the "new colony" was not any different. The book showed some excellent insights into his life and personality, often described in his own words. We still have strong connection to his progressive presence in Australia today, with the places and institutions that carry his name. Strongly recommended if you want to find out more about our history.
December 17, 2023
I love Grantlee Kieza's books, and they are giving me a much better understanding of the forming of Australia as a nation. Macquarie is no exception. Like us all, he was a flawed character. but he achieved many great things. While I would not rate his story as highly as those of Banks and Hudson Fysh, I enjoyed it very much, and without a doubt, he played a pivotal role in making Australia what it is today. (Oh, and now I realise why there are so many buildings and landmarks bearing his name! He was rather fond of naming things after himself ...)
August 1, 2020
An interesting biography on a lesser known, yet critically important Australian colonial personality. Plenty of detail undergirded with detailed research.
December 13, 2019
Australian history has never been my strong suit, despite over four decades of life here and my day job at a cultural institute. It was the latter that prompted me to pick up this new biography of one of New South Wales’ longest-serving governors. While it’s over halfway through the book before Kieza gets his subject to the colony, he spends time with some engaging context: Macquarie’s time in India, his first love and tragic loss, fighting against the US War of Independence (with a small mention of Hamilton!) and that time he scammed the British government with false army conscripts. Despite his disgraces, he bootstrapped his way to a position that was part punishment and part promotion. The back half of the book looks at his accomplishments as a city planner, crafting much of the modern Sydney layout that continues to drive commuters mad today. So, it’s disappointing to see the way the First Peoples of Australia get treated in this volume. Apart from a few fleeting mentions of the Eora nation in the early chapters, it’s not until Chapter 24 that Kieza directly tackles the “reality” of colonisation. I say “reality” lightly because it’s a typical Euro-centric approach that treats the Indigenous peoples as ‘the other.’ Only spending a few pages out of a longer chapter, Kieza alternatively talks about Indigenous Australia as a source of attack and their trouble for the colonists. He briefly refers to Macquarie’s treatment of the Indigenous people as a “stain” on his reputation, and not calling out the theft of land and genocide. It’s 2019, people: do we need another white history of the colonies? The last few chapters explore some of the minutiae of the colony with some curious asides (fights, the first flushable toilet in the country) before reminding us of his legacy. As a straightforward bio, it definitely educated me a little more, but the gaps in non-white history are a reminder that we always need to consider multiple sources.
January 29, 2023
The founding of Australia had many missteps, much greed, and hardly any heroes. Macquarie was no hero and had his share of flaws, but his championing of second chances for former convicts and endeavours toward an egalitarian colony were admirable and nation-forming. This work was thorough in its content, though if you read this with sole purpose of trying to understand more of the context of the settlement of Australia, you may find it a little slow (he doesn’t “reach” Australia until halfway through the book!), but you will know Macquarie and his eccentricities, foibles, vision, heart, and character. Fewer people have lead Australia as well as he did.
This was my first reading of Kieza and I look forward to reading more his work! He has a thorough approach without drowning in useless details, and none of the revisionist or political agenda that some other Australian history book authors have. Great title!
This was my first reading of Kieza and I look forward to reading more his work! He has a thorough approach without drowning in useless details, and none of the revisionist or political agenda that some other Australian history book authors have. Great title!
Read
September 12, 2022This book has the volume of an epic and the depth of a Wikipedia summary. Lacking in any form of critical insight or evaluation, the book is narrative-focused without an attempt at context, which further diminishes the romanticisation of the subject because it doesn't ultimately illustrate his place in history.
Read
November 28, 2020It was a good read, very informative and engaging.
November 19, 2020
I found this book to be a delight. I knew little of Lachlan Macquarie appart from the many places names and entities named after him. I was very surprised and interested in his early life which took up around half the book.
As an Australian I thank him for establishing Sydney and the early Colonies. I think he was an enlightened man who caught for the underclass and the freed convicts. I think his views were enlightened for the time and established Aussies fair go outlook toward others. Let’s not forget he had an enormous and difficult job to turn the Colonies around.
The only disappointment was the books glossing over of the plight of the Aboriginal people. I felt there suffering wasn’t covered at all accept in chapter 26 which I found firstly disappointing. However, it was a relief not to have to read about the first Australians plight as I know it would have been horrific.
As an Australian I thank him for establishing Sydney and the early Colonies. I think he was an enlightened man who caught for the underclass and the freed convicts. I think his views were enlightened for the time and established Aussies fair go outlook toward others. Let’s not forget he had an enormous and difficult job to turn the Colonies around.
The only disappointment was the books glossing over of the plight of the Aboriginal people. I felt there suffering wasn’t covered at all accept in chapter 26 which I found firstly disappointing. However, it was a relief not to have to read about the first Australians plight as I know it would have been horrific.
May 15, 2024
Fabulous. Great read
February 25, 2024
A comprehensive biography of one of the most important people in Australia’s history. A man who wished to see the best in people (unlike so many others at the time), without this man, Australia could be a different place. An enthralling read.
January 10, 2022
Took a year to read, just couldn’t get into it.
Macquarie is the father of colonised Australia, he tried hard in very trying times.
Macquarie is the father of colonised Australia, he tried hard in very trying times.
August 2, 2025
An easy to read biography of Lachlan Macquarie, the Governor of New South Wales, Australia, from 1810 to 1821. Half of the book covers his life from his birth on the Isle of Ulva in Scotland in 1762 up to 1810 when he became Governor. He joined the British Army in 1776 and served in North America, India, and Egypt. His first marriage ended with his wife dying in India. He held administrative positions in the British army, learning to be a good organizer and diplomat. He was a very sociable individual.
During his time as Governor of Australia, he is credited with transforming the colony into a free and prosperous society. He undertook extensive public works programs. He integrated former convicts into society, which led to conflict with some free settlers and military officers. However his efforts at emancipating former convicts proved to be very beneficial for the early colony. He had a strong will and autocratic style, lifting the morals of the community. His policies towards aborigines however were complex and contradictory. Whilst he advocated conciliation, there were instances when he ordered violence to quell uprisings.
This book is a good introduction into the life of Lachlan Macquarie, covering the important aspects of his life, whilst not going into to much detail on the range of complexities that Macquarie was confronted with as Governor of New South Wales.
This book was first published in 2019.
During his time as Governor of Australia, he is credited with transforming the colony into a free and prosperous society. He undertook extensive public works programs. He integrated former convicts into society, which led to conflict with some free settlers and military officers. However his efforts at emancipating former convicts proved to be very beneficial for the early colony. He had a strong will and autocratic style, lifting the morals of the community. His policies towards aborigines however were complex and contradictory. Whilst he advocated conciliation, there were instances when he ordered violence to quell uprisings.
This book is a good introduction into the life of Lachlan Macquarie, covering the important aspects of his life, whilst not going into to much detail on the range of complexities that Macquarie was confronted with as Governor of New South Wales.
This book was first published in 2019.
March 30, 2024
It was refreshing to read a biography of Macquarie that is inclusive of the impact of colonisation on Aboriginal populations. Macquarie’s early history was interesting and Kieza makes clear links to how this influenced his decisions as Governor of NSW, eg his approach to emancipists. Kieza identifies his complexities and contradictions, eg his meritocratic approach but was against democracy. Like recent interpretations of British colonisation in Australia, Kieza balances Macquarie’s achievements with the devastation of Aboriginal people and the institutionalisation of the stolen generations.
It was disappointing there wasn’t more inclusion of Elizabeth Macquarie’s influence and involvement in NSW issues, eg her role in establishing the Female Factory in Parramatta. She appears shadowy until Macquarie’s death, yet there is no shortage of primary and secondary material. This appears at odds with the extensive inclusion of Macquarie’s first wife, Jane.
In some ways this is an easy read, but I found the heavy use of contemporary idioms and, at times, lengthy, asides distracting (even though many of these were interesting).
It was disappointing there wasn’t more inclusion of Elizabeth Macquarie’s influence and involvement in NSW issues, eg her role in establishing the Female Factory in Parramatta. She appears shadowy until Macquarie’s death, yet there is no shortage of primary and secondary material. This appears at odds with the extensive inclusion of Macquarie’s first wife, Jane.
In some ways this is an easy read, but I found the heavy use of contemporary idioms and, at times, lengthy, asides distracting (even though many of these were interesting).
June 5, 2025
slow start, but another griping look into Australian history, of a man who tried his best to create a colony were both ex criminal, freemen, and aboriginal could live side by side and strive to build a Sydney to be proud of. that said, its not all sunshine and rainbows. lots of ups and downs and drak times but an interesting ride through the life of a man who influenced Australian and who's name is everywhere in Aus even if the average Australian doesn't really know him. well worth a read
September 3, 2021
Very well written. An excellent biography of Lachlan Macquarie’s life. What an interesting and full life it was .How lucky we were to score him . He had his faults,as we all do, but overall, he was a great and enlightened reformer that transformed NSW from a backwater shambles into a country on the road to greatness.
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