MACCUNN, HAMISH (1868- ), Scottish musical composer, was born at Greenock, the son of a shipowner, and was educated at the Royal College of Music. His first success was with the overture Land of the Mountain and Flood in 1887 at the Crystal Palace, and this was followed by other compositions, with a characteristic Scottish colouring. From 1888 to 1894 he was a professor at the Royal College of Music, and this latter year saw both his marriage to a daughter of John Pettie, R.A., and the production of his opera Jeanie Deans at Edinburgh. He was for some years conductor to the Carl Rosa Opera company, and subsequently to other companies. His opera Diarmid was produced at Covent Garden in 1897, and his other music includes cantatas, overtures, part-songs, instrumental pieces, and songs, all markedly Scottish in type.
MACDONALD, FLORA (1722-1790), Jacobite heroine, was the daughter of Ranald Macdonald of Milton in the island of South Uist in the Hebrides, and his wife Marion the daughter of Angus Macdonald, minister of South Uist. Her father died when she was a child, and her mother was abducted and married by Hugh Macdonald of Armadale. She was brought up under the care of the chief of her clan, Macdonald of Clanranald, and was partly educated in Edinburgh. In June 1746 she was living in Benbecula in the Hebrides when Prince Charles Edward (q.v.) took refuge there after the battle of Culloden. The prince’s companion, Captain O’Neill, sought her help. The island was held for the government by the local militia, but the secret sympathies of the Macdonalds were with the Jacobite cause. After some hesitation Flora promised to help. At a later period she told the duke of Cumberland, son of George III. and commander-in-chief in Scotland, that she acted from charity and would have helped him also if he had been defeated and in distress, a statement which need not be accepted as quite literally true. The commander of the militia in the island, a Macdonald, who was probably admitted into the secret, gave her a pass to the mainland for herself, a manservant, an Irish spinning maid, Betty Burke, and a boat’s crew of six men. The prince was disguised as Betty Burke. After a first repulse at Waternish, the party landed at Portree. The prince was hidden in a cave while Flora Macdonald found help for him in the neighbourhood, and was finally able to escape. He had left Benbecula on the 27th of June. The talk of the boatmen brought suspicion on Flora Macdonald, and she was arrested and brought to London. After a short imprisonment in the Tower, she was allowed to live outside of it, under the guard of a “messenger” or gaoler. When the Act of Indemnity was passed in 1747 she was left at liberty. Her courage and loyalty had gained her general sympathy, which was increased by her good manners and gentle character. Dr Johnson, who saw her in 1773, describes her as “a woman of soft features, gentle manners and elegant presence.” In 1750 she married Allen Macdonald of Kingsburgh, and in 1773 they emigrated to America. In the War of Independence he served the British government and was taken prisoner. In 1779 his wife returned home in a merchant ship which was attacked by a privateer. She refused to leave the deck during the action, and was wounded in the arm. She died on the 5th of March 1790. There is a statue to her memory in Inverness. Flora Macdonald had a large family of sons, who mostly entered the army or navy, and two daughters.
See A. C. Ewald, Life and Times of Prince Charles Edward (1886). The so-called Autobiography of Flora Macdonald, published by her grand-daughter F. F. Walde (1870) is of small value.
MACDONALD, GEORGE (1824-1905), Scottish novelist and poet, was born at Huntly, Aberdeenshire. His father, a farmer, was one of the Macdonalds of Glencoe, and a direct descendant of one of the families that suffered in the massacre. Macdonald’s youth was passed in his native town, under the immediate influence of the Congregational Church, and in an atmosphere strongly impregnated with Calvinism. He took his degree at Aberdeen University, and migrated thence to London, studying at Highbury College for the Congregational ministry. In 1850 he was appointed pastor of Trinity Congregational Church, Arundel, and, after resigning his cure there, was engaged in ministerial work in Manchester. His health, however, was unequal to the strain, and after a short sojourn in Algiers he settled in London and adopted the profession of literature. In 1856 he published his first book, Within and Without, a dramatic poem; following it in 1857 with a volume of Poems, and in 1858 by the delightful “faerie romance” Phantastes. His first conspicuous success was achieved in 1862 with David Elginbrod, the forerunner of a number of popular novels, which include Alec Forbes of Howglen (1865), Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood (1866), Robert Falconer (1868), Malcolm (1875), The Marquis of Lossie (1877), and Donal Grant (1883). He was for a time editor of Good Words for the Young, and lectured successfully in America in 1872-1873. He wrote admirable stories for the young, and published some volumes of sermons. In 1877 he was given a civil list pension. He died on the 18th of September 1905.
Both as preacher and as lecturer on literary topics George Macdonald’s sincerity and moral enthusiasm exercised great influence upon thoughtful minds. His verse is homely and direct, and marked by religious fervour and simplicity. As a portrayer of Scottish peasant-life in fiction he was the precursor of a large school, which has benefited by his example and surpassed its original leader in popularity. The religious tone of his novels is relieved by tolerance and a broad spirit of humour, and the simpler emotions of humble life are sympathetically treated.
MACDONALD, SIR HECTOR ARCHIBALD (1852-1903), British soldier, was born of humble parentage at Muir of Allan-Grange, Ross-shire, Scotland, in 1852. As a boy he was employed in a draper’s shop at Dingwall, but in 1870 he enlisted in the 92nd (Gordon) Highlanders. He rose rapidly through the non-commissioned ranks, and had already been a colour-sergeant for some years when, in the Afghan War of 1879, he distinguished himself in the presence of the enemy so much as to be promoted to commissioned rank, his advancement being equally acceptable to his brother officers and popular with the rank and file. As a subaltern he served in the first Boer War of 1880-81, and at Majuba, where he was made prisoner, his bravery was so conspicuous that General Joubert gave him back his sword. In 1885 he served under Sir Evelyn Wood in the reorganization of the Egyptian army, and he took part in the Nile Expedition of that year. In 1888 he became a regimental captain in the British service, but continued to serve in the Egyptian army, being particularly occupied with the training of the Sudanese battalions. In 1889 he received the D.S.O. for his conduct at Toski and in 1891, after the action at Tokar, he was promoted substantive major. In 1896 he commanded a brigade of the Egyptian army in the Dongola Expedition, and during the following campaigns he distinguished himself in every engagement, above all in the final battle of Omdurman (1898) at the crisis of which Macdonald’s Sudanese brigade, manœuvring as a unit with the coolness and precision of the parade ground, repulsed the most determined attack of the Mahdists. After this great service Macdonald’s name became famous in England and Scotland, the popular sobriquet of “Fighting Mac” testifying the interest aroused in the public mind by his career and his soldierly personality. He was promoted colonel in the army and appointed an aide-de-camp to the queen, and in 1899 he was promoted major-general and appointed to a command in India. In December 1899 he was called to South Africa to command the Highland Brigade, which had just suffered very heavily and had lost its commander, Major-General A. G. Wauchope, in the battle of Magersfontein. He commanded the brigade throughout Lord Roberts’s Paardeberg, Bloemfontein and Pretoria operations, and in 1901 he was made a K.C.B. In 1902 he was appointed to command the troops in Ceylon, but early in the following year (March 25, 1903) he committed suicide in Paris. A memorial to this brilliant soldier, in the form of a tower 100 ft. high, was erected at Dingwall and completed in 1907.