John Arthur Macartney

John Arthur Macartney was born into the prominent Macartney-Burgh family at Creagh, County Cork, Ireland in 1834. His ancestors were notable members of the British ruling class of Ireland generally known as the Protestant Ascendancy. His great-grandfather was Walter Hussey Burgh, Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer, and his grandfather was Sir John Macartney, 1st Baronet of Lish, County Armagh. He was educated at Lucan School and by private tutors in Dublin.^[1]

In 1847, at the age of 13, J.A. Macartney emigrated to Melbourne with his parents, arriving in January 1848 aboard the Stag. His father, the Very Reverend Hussey Burgh Macartney had come to Australia to take up the position of the Dean of Melbourne within the Anglican church, a role he held until 1894. J.A. Macartney finished his education in Melbourne and after a brief period working with a law firm and prospecting for gold during the Victorian gold rush, he decided to pursue a career as a grazier. His father bought him the Wandiligong property in the Ovens River region, but he quickly sold out and bought the nearby Whorouly property. Here, he met Edward Graves Mayne who became his business partner in establishing cattle properties for the next 30 years.^[1]

In 1857, Macartney decided to travel to the northern limits of British colonisation with a view to acquire landholdings. At this point of time the frontier was the Port Curtis District where the fledgling township of Rockhampton was situated. In early 1858, Macartney rode into Rockhampton with fellow colonist Dan Connor and Native Police officers John Murray and G.P.M. Murray. They found that the town only consisted of a store, an inn and two residents. Macartney soon acquired two large parcels of land: Glenmore on the northern bank of the Fitzroy River; and Waverley on grassland plains inland from Broad Sound. He also travelled out to the Mackenzie River with his cousin Sir John Macartney 3rd baronet, and P.F. MacDonald and staked further ownership claims to large acreages.^[1] All this land was inhabited by various local groups of Aboriginal Australians whose ownership rights were largely ignored by both the colonists and the colonial government. Macartney's own father, who held the respected social position of the Dean of Melbourne, is even quoted as saying that the Aboriginal people "were not the rightful owners of the soil" and had "not been unjustly dispossessed by the white man".^[2] When Macartney wrote his memoir, he concluded it with one of his favourite poems which was entitled "Take It Now" giving a further indication of his philosophy toward life.^[1]

In 1859, Macartney attempted to stock the Belmont property with sheep when a shepherd named Tarrant was killed by local Aboriginal men. 2nd Lieutenant Frederick Carr of the Native Police together with his troopers, the Macartneys, P.F. MacDonald and Henry Brisdon, formed an armed group which set out to track down those responsible. The group followed the tracks and upon finding the Aboriginal camp used the Aboriginal troopers to "disperse" them.^[1][3] One account of this incident describes how around hundred of the tribe were rounded up and "it ended in the usual way and the bulk of the wild mob were shot".^[4]

In 1860 and 1861, Macartney formed or bought several other squatting pastoral properties in the region including Yatton, Avon Downs, Wolfang, Huntley, St Helens and Bloomsbury. He quickly sold these on for profit and focused on establishing his Waverley property as both a place of residence and a working cattle station. He sold St Helens and Bloomsbury to his cousins Sir John Macartney and William George Macartney, who subsequently had years of frontier conflict with the local Aboriginal population, calling in the Native Police on several occasions to conduct punitive expeditions.^[5][6][7][4]

At Waverley, Macartney built a homestead and brought his wife, Annie Wallace-Dunlop whom he married in Melbourne in 1861, to live with him. The homestead had "shooting holes" in the walls "in case of attack by blacks".^[8] Waverley became Macartney's main residence until 1896.

Drought, flood and financial difficulties in the early 1870s at Waverley contributed to Macartney deciding to expand his pastoral interests into the newly colonised areas of western Queensland. Macartney journeyed out to the Diamantina River where he established the Diamantina Lakes Station in 1875. In the following years he also bought the Bladensburg, Manuka, Tamworth, Yarrowmere and Amphitheatre stations in the Pelican Waterhole and Hughenden regions. Further north toward the Gulf of Carpentaria and in partnership with Hugh Louis Heber-Percy, he bought the Escott station in 1882.^[1]

When taking up the Bladensburg property, Macartney is said to have wanted to view and take some of the unusual shin-bones of Aboriginal people who had been shot there in the previous months by the Native Police.^[9][10] Carl Lumholtz, a travelling ethnographer from Norway, was shown the remaining skulls by Macartney's station manager in the early 1880s.^[11] The site of the massacre was and still is called Skull Hole and is now part of a national park.^[12]

Macartney held Diamantina Lakes until 1909 and many of the geographical features on the property are named after him and his business partner E.G. Mayne. These include Mount Macartney, Mayne Range and Macartney Range. Much of the landholding is now also a national park.^[13]