Isn’t it embarrassing when you get up on your hind legs and spout out a bunch of opinionated rubbish about something you really know very little about? Especially when soon after you’ve nailed your colours to the wrong mast, the facts – which everyone else is fully aware of – are brought to your attention?
Thus it is with yesterday’s offering, where I investigated the origins of Mackellar Creek on Little River Road, concluding with confidence that it had been named after Charles, member of the regional council, or possibly his daughter, Dorothea, who wrote the definitive Australian poem, ‘My Country’.
Literally a few hours after pressing the button on that one, I stumbled on the undisputed source of the Creek’s name, which comes from a much earlier time than I’d hazarded. And that was Captain Duncan Mackellar, who was one of the earliest settlers in the Braidwood region, alongside Dr Thomas Braidwood Wilson and John Coghill.
So there’s only one thing to do when you bring attention to your own failings, and that’s to own them – no excuses, no regrets. “I was wrong,” you say. “Here are the facts.” As Igor Stravinsky so rightly said, “Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right.” Which gets me off the hook pretty neatly, I reckon.
So, a quick update on Captain Mackellar. It’s not yet clear to me exactly which ship(s) he commanded – his name is mentioned in connection with both the Clydebank and the City of Edinburgh, but I’ll need to do some more digging on this as the dates don’t add up – his entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography is mixed up with his nephew’s, whose name was also Duncan.
But we know he was granted 2,000 acres in 1822 and in 1829 settled there with his family. He called this property Strathallan, which may be drawn from the Allan Water, a river in Scotland. Mackellar became a magistrate in 1833 which meant Strathallan became host to a constable, a ‘scourger’, and a bunch of convicts, who all remained until Braidwood’s courthouse was built in 1838.
In 1837 Mackellar sold Strathallan, which had grown to 3,299 acres, to John Coghill, another of the first recipients of grant land in the area. Coghill had also been a merchant sea captain transporting felons to Australia and had also managed a successful transition to landowner and magistrate. Versatile chaps, these sea captains, no?
Coghill built his own house on the farm (or estate, perhaps) in 1842 called Bedervale, which survives today as a National Trust property, with historically important architecture, gardens and cemetery. He also owned Mona Farm, another prosperous property which is now a trendy wedding destination featuring an extensive collection of contemporary art.
It’s not immediately clear why Mackellar left the area, but with Coghill’s family transplanted to Bedervale, Strathallan slowly deteriorated over the next hundred years or so. As Mackellar Creek is close to the current Mona Farm, Strathallan must have been nearby – let’s see in future editions what survives in the nomenclature of the area!
Much of this information comes from an excellent MA thesis researched by Kirsty Altenberg in 1988 which promises to be a mine of useful lore. I’m also keen to get my hands on a book, Braidwood, Dear Braidwood by Netta Ellis, which promises to reveal much of the background to our town as it stands today. I’ll be off to the library on Monday.
I’ll also be looking out — with less optimism, it’s true — for a book Mackellar wrote based on his experiences as farmer, magistrate and businessman, “The Australian emigrant’s guide: or, A few practical observations and directions for the guidance of emigrants proceeding to that colony”.
Who knows – as an emigrant myself, there may be some useful tips in there. Corner Cottage is no Strathallan, but I’m sure some of the basic principles apply. And I’m really keen not to make too many more mistakes.