Charles Mackellar

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Charles Kinnaird Mackellar
Charles Kinnaird Mackellar

Sir Charles Kinnaird Mackellar KCMG, (5 December 1844 – 14 July 1926) was an Australian politician and doctor.

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[edit] Early life

Mackellar was the only son of Dr Frank Mackellar (from Dundee, Scotland), and was born in Sydney. He was educated at Sydney Grammar School and on leaving school had some experience on a station. About 1866 he went to Glasgow, did a distinguished course, and graduated M.B., Ch.M. in 1871. On returning to Australia he registered with the Medical Board of New South Wales on 25 March 1872 and established a very successful practice as a physician. Mackellar was honorary surgeon at the Sydney Infirmary and Dispensary 1873-77 (known as Sydney Hospital from 1881).[1] In 1882 he was appointed the first president of the newly formed Board of Health, which brought him in touch with the poor of Sydney and the conditions in which they lived. He took much interest in his new position, and gave the department an excellent start. He became very good friends with Normand MacLaurin.

[edit] Political career

Mackellar resigned his office in 1885, and in the following year was nominated to the Legislative Council of New South Wales. He was vice-president of the Executive Council in the ministry of Sir Patrick Jennings from February to December 1886, and then Minister for Justice until the government was defeated on 19 January 1887. But though a good administrator, Mackellar was not a party man, and possibly for that reason did not hold parliamentary office again. In 1903 Mackellar was appointed a Senator when Richard O'Connor was made a Judge of the High Court. He found, however, that he had too many interests in Sydney to be able to spare the time to attend the sittings which were then held at Melbourne, and not long afterwards resumed his seat in the Legislative Council of New South Wales.

He had been chosen as president of a Royal Commission on the decline of the birth rate, and was largely responsible for the report that was issued. He had for some time been interested in the care of delinquent and mentally deficient children and in 1902 was appointed president of the state Children's Relief Department. He published this year as a pamphlet, Parental Rights and Parental Responsibility, which was followed in 1907 by a thoughtful short treatise, The Child, The Law, and the State, an account of the progress of reform of the laws affecting children in New South Wales, with suggestions for their amendment and more humane and effective application.

In 1912 Mackellar visited Europe and the United States to study the methods of treatment of delinquent and neglected children, and issued a valuable report on his return in 1913. He resigned his presidency of the state children's relief board in 1916. He still, however, retained his interest and in 1917 published an open letter to the Minister of Public Health on The Mother, the Baby, and the State, and a pamphlet on Mental Deficiency, in which his clear grasp of the subject was still apparent.

[edit] Late life

Mackellar's health and memory started to decline from 1923 and died at Sydney, on 14 July 1926 and was buried in the Anglican section of Waverley Cemetery[1]. He was knighted in 1912 and created K.C.M.G. in 1916. He married in 1877, Marion, daughter of Thomas Buckland, who survived him with two sons and a daughter. His daughter, Dorothea Mackellar, did distinguished work as a poet and prose-writer.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Ann M. Mitchell (1986). Mackellar, Sir Charles Kinnaird (1844 - 1926). Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 10 297-298. MUP. Retrieved on 2007-07-15.