Francis MacCabe

Francis Peter MacCabe (1817-27 June 1897) was a surveyor in the colony of New South Wales in the 19th century. He surveyed and mapped the lower reaches of the Murrumbidgee, Darling and Murray Rivers in New South Wales.^[1]

MacCabe was born in Dublin in 1817. His parents were Dr James and Margaret (née Russell) MacCabe.^[2] He trained as a surveyor with the Ordnance Survey of Ireland and migrated to New South Wales in 1841 at the age of 24 on the ship Florentia.^[2] He worked with a team of assistants and convict labour surveying the rivers of the Murray Darling Basin between 1848 and 1852, including laying out the town of Balranald in 1849. MacCabe's surveys of these rivers made use of communication with the local Aboriginal Australians, and recorded up to 6-8 native placenames per mile of river.^[3]

MacCabe was working in the Wollongong area in early 1853 when he met Jane Osborne. They married at St Luke's church at Brownsville on 28 November 1855. They had 14 children. MacCabe left the Department of Surveyors in 1856 to manage a mine near the "Russell Vale" house that the couple had built when they married.In later life, the MacCabe family retired to Bowral, where he died on 27 June 1897.^[2]

MacCabe also explored and surveyed the Port Curtis district around what is now Gladstone in Queensland, at the request of Sir Thomas Mitchell.^[4] This survey took a total of 27 months from June 1853.^[5]

MacCabe Corner is the point at which the borders of the states of South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales meet, and was named after Francis MacCabe.^[1]

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