In contrast to his father, the forceful Quartermaster Sergeant, Alexander grew to be an unmilitary young man whose erudition and studious demeanor inspired the nickname "the schoolteacher."
Alexander studied law and was articled—that is, apprenticed—in that profession in Perth, Scotland. He married Jean (also called Jane) Macdonald at Lochalsh in 1850, and the couple emigrated to Australia in the same year.Jean was born in 1824, the second of five children of Roderick (1794--1874) and Jean née Thorburn Macdonald (1804--1882).
Alexander and Jean's first child, Jean, was born aboard ship bound for the port of Geelong in the Colony of Victoria, and Alexander entered the birth date in the family record--November 28, 1850. On arrival in Geelong the birth was registered with the date 1851. The family settled in the district of Clunes, 50 miles west of the capital, Melbourne [click the eastern red rectangle].
Why Alexander and Jean went to Australia is a matter of speculation. Certainly there were a great many vigorous young Scots for whom the Colonies offered material gain and a better life free from the ossified class system at home. But Alexander was not one of them. It is hard to believe that he could have voluntarily given up a the chance of a comfortable life as a professional man in Scotland for an assuredly arduous and uncertain one in Australia--a life moreover to which he was quite unfitted by background and temperament. More likely the couple had little choice in the matter. Their emigration may have been an instance of the practice, common in 19th century Britain, of family-proud elders maintaining a facade of respectability by banishing unwanted kin to the colonies. Alexander's mother Elizabeth née Mackenzie, with her pretensions to royal blood, would have been a natural pick for the part of family-proud elder. She would have been embarrassed both by the gap in social standing between the bride's family and the groom's families and the circumstance that the bride became pregnant before or very soon after the wedding--reasons enough, given the social conventions of the time, to use her influence to pack off the newly-weds on their one-way trip to the Antipodes.
Upon their arrival in Victoria, Alexander and Jean benefited by relatives and others who had already emigrated from Scotland. It is practically certain that they were in close contact with Jean's brother John Macdonald (b. 1822, d. 1863 Horsham, Victoria), and his wife Mary née Macqueen (b. 1828, d. 1918 Natimuck, Victoria), who arrived in Geelong on the ship "Marco Polo" in 1952. One evidence of such contact is that papers left by Mary Macdonald after she died in in 1918 included a of a photo of Alexander, son of Alexander and Jean, as a young man.
(Beth Macdonald of Numurkah, Victoria, great-great-granddaughter of John and Mary Macdonald, provided a trove of Macdonald family history as well as useful comments).
Alexander and Jean had eight children, all but Jean born in Victoria.
Jean b.1850 m. Jack McKay (Jack, Alex, Isabel, Jean)In naming their children, the couple honored their parents Alexander, Elizabeth (Betty), Roderick and Jean, as well as Alexander's brothers Charles and David and Jean's brother John. Alexander made scant use of his second name, which in accord with tradition was his mother's maiden name, Mackenzie. He did not use it in the family register, and his grave marker is inscribed simply Alexander McRae.
Anne b.1852 m. John William Draffin (William, Bert, Mary, Elizabeth, Anne).
Betty b.1854 m. [first name unknown] McCutcheon (Alex, James, William, Elizabeth).
Catherine b.1856 m. William Wilson (John, George, William, Jane).
Alexander Charles David (1858—1940) m.1892 Sarah Ann Oliver (1865—1935)
(David, Marion, Roderick, Dorothy, Ian).
Margaret b.1865 m. Thomas Guest (Hilda, Elsie, Olive, Alice, William, Alex, Charlotte).
Christina (1862—1863).
Roderick John b.1866 m. Nelly Fleay.
At the grave of Alexander McRae (Brim 366), great-grandson Graeme McRae (2012).
In Australia the Scottish immigrants contended with conditions different from any they could have known in their misty, green and hilly homeland. In summer, they endured the furnace-blast of the north wind that for days at a time sweeps out of the central desert across the plains of Victoria, depositing a fine red grit on every exposed surface and threatening deadly bush fires. In every season, but particularly in summer, they had to accept one of the realities of life anywhere in Australia: the swarms of flies ready to settle on every person, every animal, and every item of food.
In the 1850s Alexander supported his burgeoning family by farm work, but he was not well suited to life on the land and he took advantage of his better-than-average education to turn his hand to other occupations. Because land use was expanding rapidly in Victoria at the time, surveyors were in demand and Alexander may have qualified and worked in that capacity. Then, in 1866, "the schoolmaster" became a schoolmaster in fact. He founded a school at Glengower, 7½ miles north-east of Clunes, and soon had 20 pupils each paying one shilling per week. An excerpt from Victorian Government school records gives a glimpse of the school and of life in rural Victoria in the 1860s:
"Alexander McKenzie McRae’s letter of the 17th of April 1866 shows that, as early as 1865, settlers had appointed a provisional Committee to organise establishment of a common school, that a building 26ft x 16ft x 10ft, costing £50, was erected on the Hamlet Reserve, and that application had been made to the Lands Department for the reservation of a 2 acre site. The school opened on the 1st of October 1866 with A. McK. McRae as HT [Head Teacher]. It had an a.a. [average attendance] exceeding 20; pupils paid 1s weekly.... DI [District Inspector] Main recommended that aid by way of salary should be given and this was granted as from 1st of July 1867. On 30th of July 1867 the committee unanimously agreed to vest the school with the Board of Education and a grant of £50 was received towards the erection of a residence. Although enlarged in 1870 the four rooms were described as ‘pokey’. Immediately opposite the school by two hotels the teamsters rested their bullock teams on the way to Clunes. Bullocks grazed around the school and were such a danger that the site had to be fenced…." The report goes on to say that by 1871 the a.a. had risen to 56, and the building was enlarged. (This and other documents quoted in this section were transmitted by John McD. McRae).
The school venture so buoyantly initiated was attended by tragedy for the McRae family. On 12 February 1866, Jean died at Glengower two weeks after giving birth to her eighth child. The cause of death was "extravasation of fluid into the cavity of the abdomen from abscess of liver." She was 41.
Other family misfortunes followed soon afterwards when the second and third girls entered into disastrous marriages. In the end Anne Draffin’s husband abandoned her and five children, and Betty McCutcheon’s husband, a drunkard, "fell in a creek and drowned" (he was probably attempting while drunk to ford a creek that had risen suddenly, and lost his footing) leaving Betty to support her four children by "taking in washing." (Quoted are recollections of Alexander’s granddaughter Dorothy Fraser née McRae (1984)).
Alexander’s spirits slowly declined and never fully recovered from these reverses. He sought solace in whiskey, and eventually became "as helpless a drunkard as his son-in-law McCutcheon." (Source: "Mac" (MacDermott) Wilson, a grandson of Catherine and William Wilson). He conducted his school for about twenty years, about half that time with considerable success, until the business drifted into utter failure in the early to mid-1890s. According to the Government Archives cited above, "...in 1892 only 8 children attended on the occasion of the Inspector’s visit, and the school became temporarily unclassified. In 1894 only three families attended...."
On his son Alexander’s 1892 marriage certificate, Alexander was identified as a "School Teacher," but when he died seven years later (of liver cancer) his occupation was listed, not as teacher or farmer but as "Farm Labourer." In his last years he was cared for by his daughter Margaret Guest at the Guest’s farm in Brim, near Clunes, and his earlier achievements and status had been forgotten. (Material in this paragraph from "Mac" (MacDermott) Wilson, a grandson of Catherine and William Wilson).
The following verbatim entry in the McRae Family Register gives something of the flavor of Alexander's life and times:
"ALEXANDER McRAE son of Qr. Master Sergt. McRAE was married to JEAN McDONALD daughter of Rodk. McDONALD by the Rev. John McKinnon of Strath at LOCHALSH in the year of our Lord Eighteen hundred & fifty (1850).
JEAN was born 28th November at 4a.m. 1850
ANNE was born 10th August at 8a.m. 1852
BETTY was born 26th November at 12p.m. 1854
CATHERINE was born 19th October at 10p.m. 1856
ALEXANDER was born 7th July at 11a.m. 1858
MARGARET was born 18th September at 5p.m. 1860
CHRISTINA was born 25th September at 1p.m. 1862
RODERICK JOHN was born 28th January at 7p.m. 1866
And my much beloved and attached wife departed this life on Monday Feb. 12th 1866.
The remains of my beloved wife and daughter were interred in the Clunes Cemetery, Victoria. No. 170. [signed] A. McRae"
The following was added by Alexander McK.’s son Alexander:
"A. McRAE, the writer of the above died in Warricknabeal at the age of 80 years 10 months. The remains were interred into the BRIM cemetery No. 6.
His affectionate son,
Alexander McRae"
Continue Reading: 1.2.2 Alexander McRae (1858-1940) Youth (-1892)
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1. Ian McRae (1904-1975) Background and Youth (-1929)
1.2 First Foothold in Australia
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