MACKAY, Mrs. b. Strathy, Sutherlandshire; (m. sergeant Mackay of the 42 highlanders); went with the army to the Crimea 1854; one of the first nurses enlisted by Florence Nightingale for service in the Crimea 1854. d. Golspie, Scotland, Oct. 1890.
MACKAY, Alexander. b. Scotland 1808; conducted a newspaper in Toronto; resided in Canada several years; on the staff of the Morning Chronicle in London to 1849; barrister M.T. 7 May 1847; sent by chambers of commerce of Manchester, Liverpool, Blackburn and Glasgow to inquire into cultivation of cotton in India 1851; author of Electoral districts 1848; The Western world, or travels in the United States 3 vols. 1849; The crisis in Canada 1849. d. at sea on his way home from India 15 April 1852.
MACKAY, Alexander Murdoch (son of Alexander Mackay, free church minister of Rhynie, Aberdeenshire, D.D., residing at Ventnor). b. Rhynie 13 Oct. 1849; studied engineering in Edinb. univ. 1870–3; draughtsman with an engineering firm in Berlin 1873, chief of the locomotive department to Sep. 1875; sailed from Southampton as missionary to Uganda 27 April 1876, made a road from the coast to Mpwapwa 1877, arrived at Uganda Nov. 1878, where he resided to July 1887, driven away by Arab traders 12 Oct., went to the Great Lake 1887; taught the people of Uganda and converted many to christianity, reduced the language to writing and made translation of portions of scripture; prepared reading sheets by which many learnt to read, worked the printing presses himself; built houses, boats, &c. for the king of Uganda; sent constant news to England about Emin Pasha; recovered and sent bishop Hannington’s diary to England, Oct. 1886; with R. P. Ashe translated St. Matthew’s Gospel into Ganda 1888. d. Usambiro 8 Feb. 1890. A. M. Mackay, pioneer missionary of the church missionary society in Uganda. By his sister (1890) portrait; The story of Mackay of Uganda. By his sister (1891), portrait; I.L.N. 26 April 1890 p. 515, portrait.
MACKAY, Angus (son of Murdoch Mackay of the 78th highlanders and a settler in Sydney). b. Aberdeen 26 Jany. 1824; taken to New South Wales 1827; ed. at Australian college, Sydney; a schoolmaster; edited The Atlas newspaper 1847–50; manager of a general business for sir Henry Parkes at Geelong 1850–1; a digger in Victoria 1853; proprietor and editor of the Bendigo Advertiser 1854; founded Riverina Herald in Echuca; started the Sydney Daily Telegraph 1879, manager to 1883; sat for Sandhurst burghs in Victorian legislature Feb. 1868 to 1879 and 1883; minister of mines 9 April 1870 to June 1871 and June 1872 to July 1874; minister for education May to July 1874; minister of mines and education July 1874 to Aug. 1875; played against the All England eleven 1865; author of The great goldfield, a tour through the first discovered gold district of New South Wales 1853; A visit to Sydney and the Cudgegong diamond mines 1870; The semi-tropical agriculturalists and colonists’ guide 1875. d. Sandhurst 7 July 1886.
MC KAY, Archibald. b. Kilmarnock 1801; apprenticed to a handloom weaver; a bookbinder at Kilmarnock to death; kept a circulating library in King st. Kilmarnock; author of Droathy Tam 1828, many editions; Poems 1830; Recreations of leisure hours 1832, 2 ed. 1844; A history of Kilmarnock 1848, 3 ed. 1864; Ingleside lilts 1855. d. Kilmarnock 14 April 1883. C. Rogers’s Modern Scottish Minstrel, v 85–90 (1857).
MACKAY, Charles. b. High st. Edinb. 31 Oct. 1787; private in Argyll militia 1803–15; first appeared Greenock theatre as Don Pedro in The Wonder, Feb. 1816; first seen in Edinb. at theatre royal as Mr. Russell in The Jealous Wife 26 Dec. 1818, then as Baillie Nicol Jarvie in Rob Roy, Sir Walter Scott witnessing the representation on 15 Feb. 1819, one of the most popular characters on the stage; was also good in Old Dornton in the Road to Ruin, and in Sir Peter Teazle; played Baillie Nicol Jarvie at Drury Lane 3 July 1821, an engagement for 6 nights; ceased to be a member of regular company of the T.R. Edinb. 21 April 1841 after 22 years’ service; played Baillie Nicol Jarvie at Prince’s theatre, Glasgow 4 Feb. 1852 being the 1134th time of his acting the part; played the Baillie the last time and his final appearance 25 Jany. 1853; the most important of the actors in the Waverley dramas. d. 17 Lutton place, Edinburgh 2 Nov. 1857. bur. in the Calton burying ground. The British Stage, v 224, 241, 249 (1821), portrait; Dibdin’s Edinburgh Stage (1888) 285–92, 320, 379, 401–3, 416–7, 436, 450–1, portrait; The Scotsman 4 Nov. 1857 p. 2; The Era 8 Nov. 1857 p. 10; Lockhart’s Life of sir W. Scott (1845) 389, 789.
Note.—He was the original representative in the following dramas founded on Scott’s works, John Dumbie in The Heart of Midlothian 23 Feb. 1820; Edie Ochiltree in The Antiquary 20 Dec. 1820; Dugal Dalgetty in The Legend of Montrose 13 March 1822; Caleb Balderston in The Bride of Lammermoor 1 May 1822; Tony Foster in Kenilworth 1 July 1822; Richie Moniplies in George Heriot 6 Feb. 1823; Sir Geoffrey Peveril in Peveril of the Peak 12 April 1823; Friar Tuck in Ivanhoe 24 Nov. 1823; the baron of Brawardine in Waverley 22 May 1824; Meg Dodds in St. Ronan’s Well 5 June 1824; Peter Peebles in Redgauntlet 28 May 1825; and Hughie Morrison in The Two Drovers 10 Nov. 1828.
MACKAY, Charles (son of George Mackay of the royal artillery). b. Perth 27 March 1814; ed. at Woolwich 1822, in London 1825 and in Brussels 1828; sec. to William Cockerill, mechanician, Seraing 1830–2; on staff of Morning Chronicle 1835 to July 1844; edited the Glasgow Argus, Sep. 1844 to July 1847; LL.D. of Glasgow univ.; political and literary editor of Illustrated London News 1848–52 and manager 1852 to Dec. 1859; lectured on poetry and song in the United States and Canada, Oct. 1857 to May 1858; editor of The London review and weekly journal which appeared 7 July 1860; correspondent for the Times in New York, March 1862 to Dec. 1865; granted civil list pension of £100, 19 June 1862; presented with testimonial of £770 at St. James’s hall, London 27 Dec. 1877; author of A history of London 1838; The Thames and its tributaries 2 vols. 1840; Memoirs of extraordinary popular delusions 3 vols. 1841, 4 ed. 1892; Songs of Scotland 1857; The collected songs of C. Mackay 1859; The Jacobite songs of Scotland 1861; Forty years recollections of life, literature and public affairs 2 vols. 1877; Luck or what came of it, a tale 3 vols. 1881; The poetry and humour of the Scottish language 1882; Through the long day, or memorial of a literary life 2 vols. 1887. d. 47 Longridge road, Earl’s Court, London 24 Dec. 1889. Biograph, Aug. 1879 pp. 145–8; The Critic, xvii 752 (1858), portrait; T. Powell’s Pictures of living authors of Britain (1851) 146–49; I.L.N. xviii 180, 181 (1851) portrait, xx 68 (1852) portrait; Pictorial World 2 Jany. 1890 pp. 21, 23, portrait; Reynolds’s Miscellany, xxvii 105 (1862), portrait.
M’KAY, David. b. near Brechin 1810; a shoemaker at Lochee near Dundee 1828 to death; wrote verses for Chambers’ Journal and the local papers; greatly promoted the welfare of Lochee; chairman of Burns’ centenary festival Lochee 1859; Lochee correspondent of Dundee Advertiser 1864. d. Lochee 19 Dec. 1868. Norrie’s Dundee celebrities (1873) 331–3.
MACKAY, George. L.F.P.S. Glasgow 1833; M.D. Glasgow 1835; L.R.C.S. Edinb. 1841; M.R.C.P. Lond. 1860; senior assist. surgeon to H.M. ships in attack on Bogue forts, Canton river 1841; senior medical officer of Agamemnon before Sebastopol 1854; staff surgeon and medical storekeeper, royal hospital, Plymouth, June 1855; deputy inspector general Hong Kong 29 Dec. 1860 and at Haslar hospital 1865; hon. surgeon to the queen to death; retired inspector general of hospitals 26 Oct. 1870; wrote Notes on the cholera at Varna, in Edinb. Med. Journal 1857, and on Medical arrangement in naval actions, in Medical Times 1854. d. Sutherland house, Wellington 26 April 1879. The Lancet 3 May 1879 p. 640.