Duncan Scott McGregor (1835 - 1916)

Born 26 Feb 1835 in Fortingall, Perthshire, Scotland, United Kingdom

Husband of Margaret (MacRae) McGregor — married 25 Feb 1868 in Victoria, Australia

Died 28 Jan 1916 at age 80 in Chintin, Victoria, Australia

Biography

Duncan MacGregor (1835-1916), pastoralist, was born on 26 February 1835 near Learan, Perthshire, Scotland^[1]. He was the son of John MacGregor, a tenant farmer, and his wife Janet Sinclair.

He sailed from Liverpool on 7 June 1857 in the Marco Polo^[2][3] and soon after arrival in Victoria went to New South Wales. Between 1857 and 1868 Duncan MacGregor managed Mount Murchison Station and Donald MacRae’s nearby Culpauline station on the Darling River. He also explored much of south-west Queensland.

In 1868 he returned to Victoria and on 25 February married Margaret, daughter of Donald and Christina MacRae. They had four children.

1. John
2. Annie
3. Christina
4. Donald

The MacGregors lived at Glengyle, Moors Road, Coburg, and held Clunie, a property near Chintin in the Romsey district. There in 1869 MacGregor formed the basis of his famous studs of pure Booth Shorthorns and Leicester sheep. The latter he founded with twenty-five ewes from W. Field's stud in Tasmania and a ram bred by Mathew Wait of progeny from Steel's Deep Creek stud. He added more ewes from Field in 1887 and six rams from Branxholme Park, Southland, New Zealand. He believed that 'the essential for success in breeding animals is the gifted faculty that recognises the kind of animals that ought to be selected … the real fundamental principle of breeding is hereditary'. His cattle and sheep studs testified to his possession of this 'gifted faculty' as did his development of the Clydesdale horse. Although a strong pleader for reliable studbooks, he resented government attempts to interfere with the importing of horses, arguing that 'protective measures are at all times to be avoided when they interfere with the freedom of the individual'.

By 1874 MacGregor was able to move into south-west Queensland. With his widowed mother-in-law he increased the MacRae holdings in the Gregory South and Warrego Districts, and with other partners and through agents took up many of the runs comprising Durham Downs on Cooper's Creek. Most of these leases were applied for and granted between 1874 and 1879, and others not till 1884. By then he was in partnership with James MacBain, Alex McEdward and John Bell as MacGregor & Co. By 1893 Durham Downs carried 96,000 sheep, 26,000 cattle and 4000 horses, all mortgaged in June 1894. MacGregor acquired leases of the twenty-one runs of Glengyle in Gregory North in the late 1870s and early 1880s and also the leases of Melba Downs, Miranda, Yanko and Mimosa. Glengyle carried 14,113 cattle and 180 horses, the other stations 42,500 sheep, 364 horses and 11,257 cattle. All were mortgaged in 1895.

MacGregor's Victorian concerns fared better. In 1875 he had bought 3928 acres (1590 ha) for between 25s. and 43s. an acre of Koo-wee-rup swamp. Two years later his drainage scheme was operating; 3871 acres (1567 ha) were drained by 1880 at a cost of £1754 and 200 acres (81 ha) cleared of tea-tree, and the Dalmore studs of Shorthorns and Leicesters were in residence there. Enterprising though MacGregor's drainage activities were, they flooded his neighbours' properties, and caused two protracted legal cases, stimulating his love of litigation and incurring for him the temporary hostility of the Berwick and Cranbourne Shire Councils. Reports of the richness of this area, the 'Garden of Victoria' aroused interest and in 1889 the government began to drain Koo-wee-rup. By then he had acquired a second Pakenham property, Gowanlea, near Tooradin. In 1891 he turned over the management of this estate and Dalmore to his sons Donald and John, and at Chintin founded the Clunie Border Leicester stud with Scottish ewes and rams bought at Harper's Avondale sale.

MacGregor was a Presbyterian. Aged 81 he died at Clunie on 28 January 1916, survived by his wife and six children. Dour and sturdily built, he was remembered as an intrepid explorer, bushman, conqueror of swamp land and judge of stud stock.

Sources

1. ↑ "Scotland Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VQ7Y-R8L : 2 January 2015), Janet Sinclair in entry for Duncan Mc Gregor, 26 Feb 1835; citing FORTINGALL,PERTH,SCOTLAND, reference , index based upon data collected by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Salt Lake City; FHL microfilm 1,040,116, 102,727.
2. ↑ Voyage of the Marco Polo
3. ↑ Index to Unassisted Inward Passenger Lists to Victoria 1852-1923

• J. Ann Hone, 'MacGregor, Duncan (1835–1916)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1974, accessed online 2 April 2015.
• Jeannette Hope and Robert Lindsay -March 2010- Frederic Bonney Photographs -The People of the Paroo River - ISBN: 9781742323282 (pbk.) Reference to a photo in the book - The photograph is part of the Duncan Scott MacGregor Collection, donated to the Library in 1989.
• Sydney Morning Herald 19 August 1878,

SUPREME COURT-FRIDAY, AUGUST 16

In Equity.- (Before his Honor MR. JUSTICE HARGRAVE, Primary Judge.)

IN THE WILL OF DONALD McRAE AND THE TRUST PROPERTY ACT OF 1862.

This was a petition for judicial advice made by Duncan Macgregor, of Mount Murchison, near Wilcannia, station manager, and Duncan M'Rea, of Fooral, near Bourke, station manager. Mr. Owen and Mr. Dawson, instructed hy Messrs. Dawson and Son, appeared for tho petitioners.' Mr. Gordon and Dr. Donovan (for Mr. Coutts) for "the respondents (Mackenzie and wife;, instructed by Messrs. Fitzhardinge and Sons. Donald M'Rea, late of Canlpaulin station, died in July, 1867, leaving a will whereby executors were nominated. The executors renounced, and administration with the will annexed was granted to Duncan Macgregor, as the duly Authorised attorney of the widow. The petitioners were appointed trustees by the Court in 1870. The testator left, him surviving, his widow and two daughters, Margaret (now Mrs. Macgregor) and Annie (now Mrs. Mackenzie). The real estate was devised to trustees, to sell at their discretion. The personal estate was bequeathed to be sold ; expenses and debts to be paid thereout, legacies to be paid, and the residue to be invested. Out of the annual in come the trustees were to pay an annuity of £1000 to the widow and subject thereto to hold trust pro- mises on certain trusts for the children till twenty-one or marriage, then to be divided equally. The trustées had power at their absolute discretion to postpone the sale of the property real and personal. The rents and profits in the meantime to be applied as income. Each of the children had married. The trustees had carried on and managed the property (mostly station property) of the testator, and have received the rents and profits. Some of the stations had been sold and others largely increased both in area and stock. The question for the Court was " whether the excess in number of the stock at the time of the sale of Caulpaulin station above that thereon at the testator's death, and the proceeds of the Glen Gyle station and stock wholly acquired since the testator's death, and in the increase in area, and in the number and value of the stock of Mount Margaret station, are respectively to be deemed part of the corpus of the testator's estate, or as income and profits, and divisible accordingly ? "His Honor, after argument, held that the increase of the sheep and cattle, and the increased area procured for depasturing them upon, formed portion of the corpus of the estate, and was not income. The point had been decided, in Webster v. Power (L. R., 2 P. C.}, by the Privy Council. The costs were to come out of the estate.

W. T. Wright, The Live Stock Annual of Australia (Melb, 1903)

H. H. Peck, Memoirs of a Stockman (Melb, 1942)

Berwick (Vic) Shire Council, From Bullock Track to Bitumen (Berwick, 1962)

N. Gunson, The Good Country: Cranbourne Shire (Melb, 1968)

Australian Law Times, 9 Aug 1902, p15

Daily Telegraph (Melbourne), 27, 29 Apr 1880

Age (Melbourne), 29 Jan 1916

Argus (Melbourne), 29 Jan 1916

Pakenham Gazette, 18 Sept 1959

L. M. Key. Historical Geography of the Kooweerup District (M.A. thesis, University of Melbourne, 1967)

pastoral holdings records (Queensland State Archives)

family papers (privately held).