Lachlan and Elizabeth Macquarie Archive: Projects

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Outline

Project Timetable | List of Manuscripts | Digital Projects

Project Timetable
The current timetable for the LEMA Project is based upon a 5 year plan that commenced in January 2005. It aims to provide a coherent and comprehensive framework of primary and secondary source materials relating to the lives of Lachlan and Elizabeth in the period 1761-1835.

The impetus for this initiative is based upon the fact that the year 2010 will mark the bicentenary of the arrival of the Macquaries in Australia. Any assessment of their achievements and failures in NSW and Van Diemen's Land in the period from 1810-1821, as well as their individual contributions to colonial life, should be set inside the personal, social and political contexts of the late C18th and early C19th. Their lives, friendships and experiences before their arrival in Australia formed an indispensable part in shaping and defining their actions and decisions. Their activities and writings after their return to Britain in 1822 reveal the extent and depths to which life in Australia had changed them.

Some parts of the LEMA research profile were, in fact, commenced in the period 1998-2004 (as indicated below). They deal with specific aspects relating to key events and places in Scotland, India, Ceylon and Australia. The consolidation of this information forms a critical part of the LEMA Project; however, it is now overshadowed by the more urgent need to complete and make available a full range of transcripts from Lachlan Macquarie's journals in the years 1787-1807 (in India, Ceylon and Britain), supplemented by additional documents written in Australia between 1810-1821 (mainly memoranda notes), and in Britain and Europe between 1822-1824 (memoranda notes and short diary entries).

Elizabeth Macquarie's 1809 journal is available; however, this appears to be the only extant example of her personal recording of people and events in diary form. Transcripts of her surviving letters are currently being prepared and will be added in due course to the LEMA Project.

For a complete listing of Macquarie manuscripts currently available as full-text transcripts in the Documents section of the LEMA Project consult: List of Manuscripts

Digital Projects
Summarised below is a brief outline of additional stages of the LEMA Project. At times the addition of this new content will be constrainted by time and staff availability, limitations on funding, and, in particular, ready access to primary source materials. However, LEMA has already been enriched by the generosity of strangers, researchers, and institutions prepared to share their knowledge and expertise, and will continue to be enhanced by the unexpected, yet invaluable, handmaiden of historical research — serendipity.

Australia (1809 - 1822)	Journeys in Time Full-text transcripts of the travel journals of Lachlan and Elizabeth Macquarie in Australia in the period 1809-1822 - and associated research notes. Also includes their journals describing the outward and return sea voyages between Britain and NSW.
Ceylon (Sri Lanka) (1796 - 1821)	Under A Tropical Sun Full-text transcripts of Lachlan Macquarie's letters and journal in Sri Lanka in 1796. Based upon a major public exhibition held at the Macquarie University Library [May-July 2003].
India (1799)	Seringapatam 1799 Full-text transcripts of Lachlan Macquarie's journal and letter describing his experiences in the 1799 military campaign against Tipu Sultan, ruler of the kingdom of Mysore, South India. Based upon a major public exhibition held at the Macquarie University Library [May-June 1999].
Persia & Russia (1807)	Imperial Eyes 1807 Full-text transcripts of Lachlan Macquarie's 1807 journal describing his experiences travelling through the Persian Gulf, and overland through Iraq, Iran, and Russia to Britain.
Scotland	The Lachlan & Elizabeth Macquarie Room Details describing the life and times of Lachlan Macquarie and his 'Jarvisfield' estate on the Isle of Mull, Scotland; the history of Macquarie University's acquisition of Macquarie's original parlour room and its transfer to Australia (in 1967) - as well as information regarding various items of Macquarie-related memorabilia on display in the Lachlan & Elizabeth Macquarie Room at Macquarie University Library.