(G. B. S.)
McMASTER, JOHN BACH (1852- ), American historian, was born in Brooklyn, New York, on the 29th of June 1852. He graduated from the college of the City of New York in 1872, worked as a civil engineer in 1873-1877, was instructor in civil engineering at Princeton University in 1877-1883, and in 1883 became professor of American history in the university of Pennsylvania. He is best known for his History of the People of the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War (1883 sqq.), a valuable supplement to the more purely political writings of Schouler, Von Holst and Henry Adams.
MACMILLAN, the name of a family of English publishers. The founders of the firm were two Scotsmen, Daniel Macmillan (1813-1857) and his younger brother Alexander (1818-1896). Daniel was a native of the Isle of Arran, and Alexander was born in Irvine on the 3rd of October 1818. Daniel was for some time assistant to the bookseller Johnson at Cambridge, but entered the employ of Messrs Seeley in London in 1837; in 1843 he began business in Aldersgate Street, and in the same year the two brothers purchased the business of Newby in Cambridge. They did not confine themselves to bookselling, but published educational works as early as 1844. In 1845 they became the proprietors of the more important business of Stevenson, in Cambridge, the firm being styled Macmillan, Barclay & Macmillan. In 1850 Barclay retired and the firm resumed the name of Macmillan & Co. Daniel Macmillan died at Cambridge on the 27th of June 1857. In that year an impetus was given to the business by the publication of Kingsley’s Two Years Ago. A branch office was opened in 1858 in Henrietta Street, London, which led to a great extension of trade. These premises were surrendered for larger ones in Bedford Street, and in 1897 the buildings in St Martin’s Street were opened. Alexander Macmillan died in January 1896. By his great energy and literary associations, and with the aid of his partners, there had been built up in little over half a century one of the most important publishing houses in the world. Besides the issue of many important series of educational and scientific works, they published the works of Kingsley, Huxley, Maurice, Tennyson, Lightfoot, Westcott, J. R. Green, Lord Roberts, Lewis Carroll, and of many other well-known authors. In 1898 they took over the old-established publishing house of R. Bentley & Son, and with it the works of Mrs Henry Wood, Miss Rhoda Broughton, The Ingoldsby Legends, and also Temple Bar and the Argosy. In 1893 the firm was converted into a limited liability company, its chairman being Frederick Macmillan (b. 1851), who was knighted in 1909. The American firm of the Macmillan Company, of which he was also a director, is a separate business.
See Thomas Hughes, Memoir of Daniel Macmillan (1882); A Bibliographical Catalogue of Macmillan & Co’s Publications from 1843 to 1889 (1891), with portraits of the brothers Daniel and Alexander after Lowes Dickinson and Hubert Herkomer; also articles in Le Livre (September 1886), Publishers’ Circular (January 14, 1893), the Bookman (May 1901), &c.
MACMONNIES, FREDERICK WILLIAM (1863- ) American sculptor and painter, was born at Brooklyn, New York, on the 20th of September 1863. His mother was a niece of Benjamin West. At the age of sixteen MacMonnies was received as an apprentice in the studio of Augustus St Gaudens, the sculptor, where he remained for five years. In 1884 he went to Paris and thence to Munich, where he painted for some months. Returning to Paris next year he became the most prominent pupil of Falguière. His “Diana” brought him a mention at the Salon of 1889. Three life-sized figures of angels for the church of St Paul, New York, were followed by his “Nathan Hale,” in the City Hall Park, New York, and a portrait of James S. T. Stranahan, for Brooklyn. This last brought him a “second medal” in the Salon of 1891, the first time an American sculptor had been so honoured. In 1893 he was chosen to design and carry out the Columbian Fountain for the Chicago World’s Fair, which placed him instantly in the front rank. His largest work is a decoration for the Memorial Arch to Soldiers and Sailors, in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, consisting of three enormous groups in bronze. In Prospect Park, Brooklyn, MacMonnies has also a large “Horse Tamer,” a work of much distinction. A “Winged Victory” at the U.S. military academy at West Point, New York, is of importance; and his “Bacchante,” an extraordinary combination of realism and imagination, rejected by the Boston Public Library, is now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He also became well known as a painter, mainly of portraits. In 1888 he married Mary Fairchild, a figure painter of distinction, but in 1909 they were divorced and she married Will H. Low.
MACNAGHTEN, SIR WILLIAM HAY, Bart. (1793-1841), Anglo-Indian diplomatist, was the second son of Sir Francis Macnaghten, Bart., judge of the supreme courts of Madras and Calcutta. He was born in August 1793, and educated at Charterhouse. He went out to Madras as a cadet in 1809, but was appointed in 1816 to the Bengal Civil Service. He early displayed a great talent for languages, and also published several treatises on Hindu and Mahommedan law. His political career began in 1830 as secretary to Lord William Bentinck; and in 1837 he became one of the most trusted advisers of the governor-general, Lord Auckland, with whose policy of supporting Shah Shuja against Dost Mahommed, the reigning amir of Kabul, Macnaghten was closely identified. As political agent at Kabul he came into conflict with the military authorities and subsequently with his subordinate Sir Alexander Burnes. Macnaghten attempted to placate the Afghan chiefs with heavy subsidies, but when the drain on the Indian exchequer became too great, and the allowances were reduced, this policy led to an outbreak. Burnes was murdered on the 2nd of November 1841; and owing to the incapacity of the aged General Elphinstone the British army in Kabul degenerated into a leaderless mob. Macnaghten tried to save the situation by negotiating with the Afghan chiefs and, independently of them, with Dost Mahommed’s son, Akbar Khan, by whom he was assassinated on the 23rd of December 1841; the disastrous retreat from Kabul and the massacre of the British army in the Kurd Kabul pass followed. These events threw doubt on Macnaghten’s capacity for dealing with the problems of Indian diplomacy, though his fearlessness and integrity were unquestioned. He had been created a baronet in 1840, and four months before his death was nominated to the governorship of Bombay.