Research commissioned by G. B. MacCormick provided information about the early MacCormick family.
Recollections and research have been provided by Mary (Scholley) Halliday, Susan (MacCormick) Dunn & Jim MacCormick.
As usual detail of later generations is not included for privacy reasons.
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Jasper McCormick, a fish curer, married Janet
Tennent in Beith,
Ayr, Scotland in 1809. Nothing is known about previous generations.
There
is a book published "Broken Blood, The Rise and Fall of the Tennant
Family".
I have not been able to find a copy to check for a connection.
A son, Hugh MacCormick was born in Kilbirnie in 1916. There must be other family but we have no record. Hugh went on to become a Flax and Hemp Merchant, marring Janet Lindsay in Glasgow in 1843. The Post Office directories show the family at many addresses in the Glasgow area. David MacCormick was born at 37 St. Andrew Street,
Glasgow in
1865. He was the youngest of nine children. He was married to Mary Anne
Clayton by the Rev John Orr of Tron Parish, Glasgow in 1889. We
know
little more of his life in Scotland or of the other family members.
Hugh
died in 1898 and David, and family, soon were to emigrate to Australia.
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| William Nassau (Nassan?) Clayton was born in about
1828 in Ireland
(from his death certificate) or Scotland (from family recollections),
the
son of John Clayton, a soldier. William Clayton followed his father
into
the military rising to the rank of Sergeant Major. He was posted at
various
times to South Africa, Colombo, India and Ireland. If we knew his
regiment
it would be possible to follow up regimental histories and identify the
timing and reasons for his postings. Was he involved in any
famous
campaigns? Several generations hence his granddaughter would marry the
grandson of Captain Henry Miller (of the 40th Regiment).
William married Minnie Craddock in Galway, Ireland in about 1860. She is identified as being born in Ireland however Craddock is a Welsh name. As an army wife she followed William around the empire with the children being born in various countries. Mary Anne and Georgina (Dolly) were born in Ireland, Fanny in South Africa, and others in Australia. It seems William came to Queensland in about 1880 and was involved in the Queensland defence forces. Before Federation in 1901 the Australian States were responsible for their own defense. Victoria even had a Navy. Investigation of the history of the Queensland defence forces could reveal more. The Clayton family settled in Toowong, now a suburb of Brisbane. Their house Aberfeldie stood on the corner of Sherwood Road and Clayton Lane Emily, the eldest daughter is said to have stayed in the UK (?) while Mary Anne Clayton married in Scotland some eight years after William first(?) arrived in Queensland. Biographical records from Queensland mention that Fanny Clayton took and active interest in politics and women's organizations and was the owner and lady editor of Figaro. She was an executive member of the Victoria League, member of the Red Cross Society and the Comforts Fund. The accidental death of son William Francis Nassau Clayton, a school teacher is mentioned in the Morning Bulletin, Rockhampton, Saturday 4 Jan 1890. He met his death on 2nd Jan 1890 in a boating accident off Port Keppel Island when his 16 foot boat foundered in a violent storm. He and his companion, the Headmaster of his school were swimming for shore when he was apparently taken by a shark. There are inconsistencies in dates, ages and places of birth. Maybe the Clayton family moved back and forth between Australia and Great Britain several times because of William's army postings. |
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In about 1900 David MacCormick, Mary Anne
(Clayton) and
the five children came to Brisbane Australia. The first settled in
Toowong,
Brisbane, next door to Mary Anne's parents who had settled there some
years
earlier. Two years later David, Mary Anne and family moved on to
NSW. They seem to have lived in Goulburn and Uralla among other places.
Then the family moved to Sydney where David MacCormick set up as an
estate
agent working out of a city address and was identified in the 1920's
with
the subdivision of land in the Cronulla area. David was somewhat an
entrepreneur
They owned at the time a magnificent property, "Garden Reach" at
Hunters Hill.
The fortune of the MacCormick's suffered along with the rest of the
world
in the great depression of the 1930's
Minnie Craddock MacCormick, was born in Glasgow and came to Australia with her family at the age of about seven. She trained as a nurse and midwife. She worked in a Brisbane hospital and the Scottish hospital in Sydney. She was involved in the delivery of more than one hundred babies. The world-wide influenza epidemic of 1918-19 killed more than 10,000 Australians. In Sydney alone almost 400,000 were infected. Minne was to nurse hundreds at this time. She married Charles Miller Scholley a returned servicemen and Victorian. They settled in Neutral Bay and raised their children. In later years she lived in Rose Bay and then in St Ives with the family of her daughter Mary. She is remembered by the family as a kind caring loving person. The grandchildren were taught to recite the family names, or nicknames, "Pa, Ma, Willy, Lindsay, Minnie, Dolly, Nettie, Alan, Lily, Gordon, Bruce". The faster the better. Other family member turned the names into a lullaby. |
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The MacCormick Family
about 1920