Journeys in Time: Places

Places

When Lachlan and Elizabeth Macquarie finally retired to their estate on the Isle of Mull, Scotland, in 1824 they would have been able to look back upon a unique series of travel experiences - having visited places that were largely unknown and unseen by most Europeans of their time.

In the case of Lachlan Macquarie he had managed by the end of his life to visit and travel upon every continental landmass on earth (with the exception of Antarctica): North America (1776-1784), Asia: India/China/Russia (1788-1807), Africa (1801-1802, 1809), Australia (1809-1822), South America (1809, 1822), Europe (1823). He had visited cities and ports as diverse as Edinburgh, Boston, New York, Cape Town, Calcutta, Bombay, Canton, Alexandria, Baghdad, Moscow, St Petersburg, Copenhagen, St Salvadore (Bahia), Paris, Rome, and of course, London.

For her part, Elizabeth Macquarie, despite frail personal health, accompanied her husband on nearly all his travels in the period 1809 -1823. She endured great privations, and shared in many potentially dangerous situations - the threat of attack from French naval vessels on the voyage to New South Wales, the risk of shipwreck in Australian coastal waters, and the uncertainties of rounding Cape Horn on their 1822 voyage to England (and thereby completing their circumnavigation of the globe).

The number of geographical places names mentioned in their journals in the period 1809 - 1822 is overwhelming, especially in the light of Lachlan Macquarie's propensity to create and register new names in all the places that he visited during his tours of inspection. It should also be noted that it was Macquarie who first proposed (based on his reading of Matthew Flinders' charts) that the name 'Australia' should be officially applied to the continent that he governed. [see Macquarie to Henry Goulburn 21 December 1817 HRA 1:9 p.747, and also, Note 84 pp.867 -868]

The need for a gazetteer of place names is an integral part the journal transcriptions that appear in this project. This information has been derived from a wide range of published sources, many of which you will find listed in the Bibliography section.