John Donald Macansh (31 May 1820 – 1 August 1896) was a member of the

Queensland Legislative Council The Queensland Legislative Council was the upper house of the parliament in the Australian state of Queensland. It was a fully nominated body which first took office on 1 May 1860. It was abolished by the Constitution Amendment Act 1921, which to ...

Business career

Macansh was born in

Stirling Stirling (; sco, Stirlin; gd, Sruighlea ) is a city in central Scotland, northeast of Glasgow and north-west of Edinburgh. The market town, surrounded by rich farmland, grew up connecting the royal citadel, the medieval old town with its me ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

in 1820 to John Macansh and his wife Ann (née White) and was educated at Edinburgh High School and Stirling Grammar.Macansh, John Donald (1820–1896)
—

Australian Dictionary of Biography The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...

. Retrieved 10 March 2015. Arriving in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

in 1838, he worked as a

clerk A clerk is a white-collar worker who conducts general office tasks, or a worker who performs similar sales-related tasks in a retail environment. The responsibilities of clerical workers commonly include record keeping, filing, staffing service ...

for the

Bank of Australasia The Bank of Australasia was an Australian bank in operation from 1835 to 1951. Headquartered in London, the bank was incorporated by Royal Charter in March 1834. It had initially been planned to additionally include first South Africa and then ...

before leasing a property on the

Hunter River Hunter River may refer to: *Hunter River (New South Wales), Australia *Hunter River (Western Australia) *Hunter River, New Zealand *Hunter River (Prince Edward Island), Canada **Hunter River, Prince Edward Island, community on Hunter River, Canada ...

in 1840. Around 1846 he moved to

Murrumburrah Murrumburrah is a township in New South Wales, Australia, part of a twin town with Harden. The town is in Hilltops Council local government area in the South West Slopes area of NSW. It is on the Burley Griffin Way, the major link from the Ri ...

and began work as a Station manager for S.K. Salting and together they established a merino stud at Bonyeo. Macansh worked at various properties in the

Yass Yass may refer to: People * Catherine Yass (born 1963), painter * Yazz, a British pop singer from the 1980s and 1990s * Jeff Yass (born 1956), options trader, managing director and one of the five founders of the Philadelphia-based Susquehanna I ...

area of

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

and in 1867 he joined in partnership with two of Salting's sons to purchase a property near

Narrabri Narrabri ( ) is a locality and seat of Narrabri Shire local government area in the North West Slopes, New South Wales, Australia on the Namoi River, northwest of Sydney. It sits on the junction of the Kamilaroi Highway and the Newell Highway. At ...

. By 1875, Macansh had moved to

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

and bought

Canning Downs Canning Downs was the first residential establishment built by a white person on the Darling Downs in Queensland, Australia. It is located a short drive from the town of Warwick and originally extended south east to Killarney and the McPherson ...

on the

Darling Downs The Darling Downs is a farming region on the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range in southern Queensland, Australia. The Downs are to the west of South East Queensland and are one of the major regions of Queensland. The name was generall ...

and in 1880 he purchased Albilbah Station. He used Canning Downs to breed stud dairy and beef cattle and then he obtained a lease on

Brunette Downs Station Brunette Downs Station, mostly referred to as Brunette Downs, is a pastoral lease operating as a cattle station in the Northern Territory of Australia. Location Brunette Downs Station is located in the Northern Territory about north-eas ...

in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

Political career

Macansh was elected to the Glengallan Divisional Board and then was appointed to the Queensland Legislative Council in April 1886 which he served until his death ten years later. His liberal policies had little impact with the other Legislative Council members and none of his objectives were realised.

Personal life

In 1849, he married Sarah Jane Windeyer daughter of Archibald Windeyer, a landowner and pastoralist. He died while attending a Glengallan Divisional Board meeting in August 1896 and his will, valued nominally at £241,588, was administered by a

family trust A discretionary trust, in the trust law of England, Australia, Canada and other common law jurisdictions, is a trust where the beneficiaries and/or their entitlements to the trust fund are not fixed, but are determined by the criteria set out in t ...

that needed to be legalised by a private members bill in 1910.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Macansh, John Members of the Queensland Legislative Council 1820 births 1896 deaths 19th-century Australian politicians