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sketcher, naturalist and author, was born on 18 December 1821 in Aberdeen, Scotland, eldest of the twelve children of William MacGillivray, an eminent British ornithologist. John’s first trip to Australia and the South Pacific as a naturalist was made under the patronage of Lord Derby; he spent 1842-45 on board HMS Fly which was surveying the Australian and New Guinean coasts under the command of Captain F.P. Blackwood. In September 1844 MacGillivray, inspired by his friend John Gilbert (the naturalist who was killed by Aborigines on 28 June 1845 during the Leichhardt expedition), left the ship at Port Essington and spent four months in the Northern Territory, re-boarding in January 1845 in the company of his Aboriginal friend Neinmal.

In December 1846 MacGillivray set off again from England for Australian waters, this time as naturalist on board HMS Rattlesnake commanded by Captain Owen Stanley, the other naturalists on board being T.H. Huxley and James Fowler Wilcox. The Rattlesnake arrived at Hobart Town in June 1847 and spent the next three years surveying the Great Barrier Reef and northern Australian coast. While at Sydney in 1848 MacGillivray married Williamina Paton Gray, also from Scotland; they had a son and two daughters.

After publishing his Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake (London 1852), MacGillivray sailed as naturalist in HMS Herald to South America and the South Pacific. An incomplete two-volume manuscript, 'Voyage of H.M.S. Herald under the command of Capt. H. Denham RN, being private journal kept by John MacGillivray naturalist’, is held in the Admiralty Library, London (microfilm copy, Mitchell Library). It contains a few competent diagrammatic sketches and coastal profiles (including Crater of Raoul Island) annotated in McGillivray’s hand. A view of Ninepin Rock (St Paul’s Island) with a small manned rowing-boat nearby, however, is cryptically annotated 'drawn by the artist’ and it is possible that they were all by the Herald's draughtsman (John Glen Wilson, q.v.). Certainly, the occasional rough sketch in MacGillivray’s natural history notebook (1855-66) suggests that he had few drawing skills. As Calaby notes, 'he enjoyed collecting and observing above all else’ and any sketching was purely to assist in the classification of his collections.

McGillivray apparently quitted the Herald at Sydney in 1855. He lived there with his family between collecting trips, finding employment with Dr James Cox, a well-known conchologist. In 1864 he moved to Grafton, New South Wales, and went into business with Wilcox, his old Rattlesnake companion. On 6 June 1867, when back at Sydney preparing a monograph on land shells for Cox and planning an expedition to Cape York, McGillivray had a sudden heart attack and died.

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011