Nov 16, 2012

Elizabeth Henrietta Macquarie (nee Campbell)



Elizabeth Henrietta Macquarie (1778 – 1835) was the youngest daughter of John Campbell of Airds, Scotland. Elizabeth’s sister married a relative of the Macquarie’s, and she met her distant cousin Lachlan Macquarie at the deathbed of his uncle. After proposing at her aunt’s house in 1805, Lachlan made it clear to Elizabeth they could not marry until he returned from service in India. The couple were married in November 1807 after Lachlan returned home early and the couple had their first child, Jane Jarvis, who died the same year.

Lachlan and Elizabeth moved to Australia so that Lachlan could take up the position of Governor of NSW in 1810. Elizabeth had a fond interest in the welfare of the women convicts and Aborigines, and went on journeys with her husband over the Blue Mountains and the areas he named. The couple's second child Lachlan, named after his father, was born in March 1814. After resigning as Governor in 1820, and waiting for his successor to arrive, the family sailed back to Scotland and made their home back at Macquarie's estate on Mull. Elizabeth and young Lachlan continued to live at the family estate in Mull after Macquarie's death in 1824 and she received a pension until her death in March 1835. Lachlan Junior joined the army like his father and married Isabella Hamilton Dundas but had no children. Lachlan Junior died in May 1845, aged 31.

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