MAC DERMOTT, Robert (son of W. C. Mac Dermott, barrister). b. Upper Gloucester st. Dublin 1832; ed. Trin. coll. Dublin, B.A. and M.B. 1854, M.D. 1858, gained Berkeley gold medal for Greek; professor of materia medica in Catholic univ. Ireland 1856; the best public lecturer of his time. d. of typhoid fever 9 Great Denmark st. Dublin 8 Oct. 1859. Memoir of Dr. R. Mac Dermott, M.R.I.A. Dublin (1860).
M’DIARMID, John (son of Hugh M’Diarmid, minister of Gaelic church, Glasgow). b. Glasgow 1790; clerk in Commercial bank, Edinburgh to 1817; amanuensis to professor John Playfair in Edinb.; with Charles Maclaren and William Ritchie established the Scotsman in Edinb. 25 Jany. 1817; edited the Dumfries and Galloway Courier, Jany. 1817, a proprietor 1820, owner of the paper 1837 to death, his son William Ritchie M’Diarmid admitted a partner 1843; published the Dumfries Magazine 1825–8; the friend of Robert Burns’ widow and her executor 1834; entertained at a public dinner at Dumfries 1847; edited Poems of W. Cooper 1819, 4 ed. 1854; Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield 1823; and Paul and Virginia 1824; author of The scrap book prose and verse. Edinb. 1821, 3 ed. 1825; Letters of Junius, with dissertations and notes. By Atticus Secundus 1822; Sketches from nature 1830; Pictures of Dumfries and its environs 1832. d. Dumfries 18 Nov. 1852; a M’Diarmid bursary of £10 a year founded at Edinb. univ. W. Anderson’s Scottish Nation, iii 720–2 (1863).
MACDONALD, Alexander. 2 lieut. R.A. 3 Dec. 1803; lieut.-colonel 20 July 1840 to 9 Nov. 1846; served in the Peninsula and South of France 1809–14; C.B. 19 July 1838; L.G. 20 June 1854. d. Aix-la-Chapelle 31 May 1856.
MACDONALD, Alexander. b. New Monkland, Lanarkshire, June 1821; commenced working in a coal pit 1831; at the age of 21 had saved £250; ed. Glasgow univ. 1851 still working as a collier during the summer and autumn; a teacher 1853; agitated for release of women and children from working in coal mines 1852–72, and on laws of contract and hiring, and on the truck system; contested Kilmarnocks burghs 1868; M.P. Stafford 1874 to death, the first working man member, known as the Working Men’s member of parliament; sec. of Miners’ association of Scotland; president of Miners’ national union 1863; visited the U.S. America 3 times; presented by the miners with £1500, Jany. 1873; member of royal commission on trade unions 1874. d. Well hall near Hamilton 31 Oct. 1881. bur. New Monkland ch. yard 7 Nov. The Biograph, Aug. 1880 pp. 148–57; I.L.N. lxiv 551, 552 (1874), portrait.
MACDONALD, Angus. b. Aberdeen 1816; ed. at King’s coll. Aberdeen and univ. of Edinb., M.D. Edinb. 1864; M.R.C.P. Edinb. 1868, F.R.C.P. 1869; practised at Edinb. 1864 to death; lecturer at Minto house, afterwards at Surgeons’ hall; phys. and clinical lecturer on diseases of women in Edinb. royal infirmary; phys. to royal maternity hospital, Edinb.; F.R.S. Edinb. 1871; edited R. E. S. Jackson’s Notebook of materia medica, Edinb. 1871, another ed. 1875; author of The bearings of chronic diseases of the heart upon pregnancy 1878. d. 29 Charlotte sq. Edinburgh 10 Feb. 1886.
MACDONALD, Duncan George Forbes (youngest son of John Macdonald 1799–1849, called ‘The Apostle of the North’). b. about 1823; agricultural engineer in London and Dingwall 1848, also practised as a civil engineer; one of comrs. to adjust boundary line of British North America about 1858; drainage engineer of improvements under control of enclosure comrs. for England and Wales; engineer in chief to inspector general of Highland destitution; F.G.S., F.R.G.S.; author of What the farmer may do with the land 1852; British Columbia and Vancouver’s island, a description of these dependencies 1862; Hints on farming and estate management 10 ed. 1869; Napoleon III. and the Franco-German war 1871; Cattle, sheep and deer 1872; The Highland crofters of Scotland 1878; Grouse disease 1883. d. Lymington house, Brighton 3 Jany. 1884.
MACDONALD, Elizabeth (dau. of Renald Macdonald of Scotland). b. 1772; sent by her guardian to school at Calais; received 22 May 1794 at the Benedictine monastery of the Glorious assumption of the B.V.M. founded at Brussels by Lady Mary Percy in 1597; fled with the community to England in 1794; received the habit of religion and took the names of Mary Benedict at the convent St. Peter st. Winchester 11 May 1795 and was the first to be professed there 8 Sep. 1796; elected 15th abbess of the community 9 Sep. 1811, the ceremony of her benediction took place 10 Oct. 1811, tendered her resignation to cardinal Wiseman, resignation accepted 25 Feb. 1848. d. at the convent, Winchester 17 May 1854.
MACDONALD, George. b. 10 Oct. 1784; ensign 27 foot 5 Sep. 1805, captain 17 Aug. 1815, placed on h.p. 25 Feb. 1816; captain 16 foot 5 Sep. 1816, lieut.-col. 10 Jany. 1837, placed on h.p. 7 July 1841; governor of Sierra Leone 17 Dec. 1841 to March 1845; col. of 96 foot 27 Dec. 1860, of 16 foot 13 Feb. 1863 to death; general 25 Oct. 1871; placed on retired list 1 Oct. 1877. d. Torquay 1 March 1883. Graphic, xxv 181 (1883) portrait.
MACDONALD, Hugh. b. Bridgeton, Glasgow 4 April 1817; apprenticed to a block-printer; kept a provision shop in Bridgeton; a block-printer at Paisley to 1849; wrote for the Glasgow Citizen 1849–53 and for the Glasgow Sentinel 1855; edited the Glasgow Times; literary editor of Morning Journal 1858 to death; author of Rambles round Glasgow 2 ed. 1856; Days at the coast, sketches of the Frith of Clyde 1874. d. 16 March 1860. Hugh Macdonald’s Poetical Works (1865), memoir; Rev. Charles Rogers’s Leaves from my autobiography (1876) 286–7.
MACDONALD, James. Comedian in North of England; lessee of the Shields, Scarborough and Hartlepool theatres; lessee of T.R. Darlington to 1871; held a responsible position at Drury Lane theatre under F. B. Chatterton 1871–9. d. Newcastle-on-Tyne 25 Jany. 1889 aged 60.