William Thompson MacMichael
By Terese Smith
TFHS Inc. Member No. 5075
As a child I was told that my great grandmother, Elizabeth Ellen had been wealthy but that her second husband, my great grandfather, had 'lost' (or drunk away) her money. In reality, her family had lost its money years before when her grandfather, William Thompson MacMichael, became a victim of the 1840s depression in Van Diemen' s Land. Tantalising glimpses of William's career emerge from the early colonial history. It seems that William aspired to be a player in the early commercial life of Hobart Town and may have been trying to emulate the success of the Gatehouse family into which he had married.
William MacMichael was christened at the Castle Street Baptist Chapel in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, on 5 January 1805. His parents, John MacMichael and Hannah Thompson, had been married a year earlier at the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Bridgnorth. At least six other children were born to John and Hannah; two of William's brothers, Robert (b. 1812) and Arthur (b. 1814) would follow William to Van Diemen's Land.
William arrived in Van Diemens' Land in May 1822 aboard the Denmark Hill, as a steerage passenger. In 1828 a daughter, Anna, was born to William Thomas [sic] MacMichael and Margaret Macguire of Sorell.1 There is no record of a marriage between the couple. William's occupation is shown as Merchant's Clerk. William appears to have left the colony returning aboard the Gulamre[sic] in 1831. One of William's first business ventures occurred in October of that year when he signed a 'Formal Whaling Agreement' with Jas Kelly and Thomas Lucas.
For the sum of £200 and 1/17 lay of the schooner Hetty's next whaling voyage
William would advise Kelly and Lucas of the latitude and longitude of a mysterious south land, where whales were said to be plentiful. William was to return £50 to the whaling partners if the voyage did not prove successful. The Hettycruised for some twelve months, returning from New Zealand in October 1832 with 'modest catch' but not having located William's 'south land.2
By 1833 William had established himself as an auctioneer in Hobart Town and in 1832 he married Dinah Gatehouse, daughter of Clement Gatehouse of Pitt Water and niece of George Gatehouse of New Town.3-5
William and Dinah's first child, Eleanor Dinah, was christened in October 1834.6 By 1835 William was an Auctioneer and Partner in G. T. Collecut, Shippers and Commission Agents. In 1835, disgruntled colonists, rankling under Governor Arthur's autocratic rule, formed an association to represent their interests to the Governor. The Association appointed a Council of twenty-five members to 'represent the grievances under which the Colonists were labouring.7 Membership of this Council included A. F. Kemp, George Gatehouse, William Thompson MacMichael and Thomas Yardley Lowes.
George Gatehouse had established the first racecourse in Tasmania on his property at Moonah (now occupied by the Stanley workshops). In 1836 Gatehouse asked William to dispose of the racecourse in his capacity as auctioneer and agent. MacMichael suggested it be offered in 100 shares at £30.0.0 each. The racecourse, later known as Northall Park, was privately owned for many years.8
In June 1838, William's brother Robert married Hannah Gatehouse (born 1816) at St Johns Church, New Town. Hannah was Dinah MacMichael' s cousin, the daughter of Clement's brother William who had arrived in Hobart in 1826 with Clement, his wife Dinah and their four children aboard the Hugh Crawford. 9Hannah's father had died in January leaving her a third of his estate.10 In 1887 the intermarriage of the MacMichael and Gatehouse families would be repeated when William and Dinah's granddaughter, Elizabeth Ellen (1865-1910).married Robert and Hannah's son John Charles (1839-1887).11
William appears to have begun overextending himself financially in 1839 when he bought the Hobart Town Parsonage site from Mr Collecut and a further 439 acres. In April 1839 it was reported that William owed Collecut £495. It appears that William may have been speculating as the effects of the crippling 1840s depression on the colony began to be felt by other businessmen.
During 1840 William was renting the property 'Trefusis' near Ross. His brother, Arthur who was living at 'Trefusis', was asked by Deputy Surveyor General Cotton to guide his expedition to Toombs Marsh" to assess its potential as a source of irrigation for landowners on the Macquarie Plains.12 The expedition was a success and Arthur rode to Hobart to advise his brother of the landowner's plans to dam the Marsh. William, by then on the verge of bankruptcy' purchased an unlocated order for 1000acres covering Toombs Marsh on 29 April. Unfortunately for William, Governor Franklin, who was returning to the capital from the north of the state, called into Ross and met with the landowners who explained their scheme to him, obtaining his agreement. Toombs' Marsh was granted to the Macquarie landowners in June 1840 and work commenced promptly. MacMichael was loath to relinquish his opportunistic claim and wrote to the Colonial Secretary and the landowners asserting his prior ownership.13
In 1842 Captain Haig's home at 103 Hampden Road (now known as 'Narryna') was offered for sale due to Haig' s financial difficulties arising from the depression. Rowntree writes that 'MacMichael the auctioneer bought the house'.14 In May 1842 William purchased four lots in Bath totalling 2713 acres, in conjunction with Robert Kerr.15 In September 1842 the Hobart Town Advertiserreported that William was insolvent.
In September 1842 the Hobart Town Advertiserreported that Mr T. Y. Lowes had invited William to become a partner in his auction house.
We rejoice at this circumstance .. as it clearly shows that Mr Lowes (who is so well able to judge) duly appreciates Mr MacMichael's abilities and experience, having held out a friendly hand, at a time when some parties, and they are but a few, with a show of ill-feeling, rarely attempted, to injure one who had met with reverses.16
William's partnership with Lowes was fruitful and they auctioned many ships and cargoes as well as livestock, other goods and leases throughout the 1840s. Two of William's sons were enrolled in Hutchins School in 1848. In February 1850, William offered a Californian Gold Cup as a prize in the New Town Races.17
It appears that William was again experiencing financial difficulties. The partnership with Lowes was dissolved on 1 March 1850. William resumed business as an auctioneer on the comer of Macquarie and Argyle Streets. However, William does not appear to have enjoyed success without Lowes' sponsorship: the Couriercarries only one advertisement of an auction handled by him while Lowes continued to advertise extensively. William's sons left Hutchins School in Easter 1850.
In June 1850 William's home was offered for letting by Lowes:
Delightful residence and Garden in Davey Street Hobart - the cottage residence and extensive garden with paddock for cow and stream of pure water running through, the residence of Mr W T MacMichael, to whom apply or Mr TY Lowes, Collins Street.18
The axe finally fell on 19 June 1850 when the Couriercarried Insolvency Notices advising that William had presented his petition to the Commissioner for Insolvent Estates alleging his insolvency and praying for relief pursuant to the Act. Meetings of his creditors took place in late June and early July.
William registered several times as a candidate for Government employment in the 1850s and the ledger notes indicate that he 'passed a few months in or near the Lunatic Asylum in close retirement' and 'in Lunatic Asylum 1853 - out again in March 1854.19
The Wayn Index shows William as Secretary to the Proprietors of the New Town Racecourse in early 1857 and that in May, William was 'going to Victoria.20
William died on 21 June 1867 and was apparently buried in St David's Park where his headstone has been preserved. There is no record of William's death in the Archives Office of Tasmania. It appears that the costs of his burial were met by his son William Gatehouse MacMichael. William shares his headstone with W. G. MacMichael's son William Edward ( died 1866 aged 4 years), infant daughter Susan (died 1868 aged 11 months) and first wife Susan ( died 1869 aged
30 years). William was survived by his wife Dinah who died in 1894 and was buried in George Gatehouse's imposing family vault at St Johns Church, New Town.21 Her infant son Clement had been buried in the vault in 1838.
In 1864, William's second son George Raymond of Breadalbane had married Jemima Daniels of Bellerive. Their first child Elizabeth Ellen was born in Launceston in 1865. A further four children were born in Launceston before the family relocated to the St Helens areas in the 1870s. In 1887, Elizabeth married her cousin John, twenty-five years her senior and cousin through both her father and grandmother's family lines. John died two years later in 1889, just before the birth of his second son. Ten years later, Elizabeth married my grandfather, a Norwegian sail maker called Jacob Smith Jaabaek who had jumped ship in Launceston with the assistance of William Holyman. Jacob eked out a living as a tin miner in St Helens. While my grandparents often told the story of Jacob's arrival in Tasmania, I am sure they had little idea that Elizabeth's family had quite a history in the other end of the state!
1 Subsequent records show Anna as 'Hannah' the name of William's mother and eldest sister.
2 Shipping Arrivals and Departures Tas 1803-1833
3 Many of the observations on William's business career have been gleaned from the Wayn index in the State Archives.
4 Bartlett Index
5 George Gatehouse (1778?-1838) was transported to New South Wales in 1803 for seven years for stealing. He went on to become a successful merchant in partnership with A. F. Kemp and brought his brothers Silas, Clement and William to share in his prosperity.
6 Other children were William (b.1836), Clement (b.1837), George Raymond (christened 1838), Edith (b.1839), Grace (b.1841), John (b.1843), Joseph (b.1846) and Mary Ann (b.1847).
7 Henry Melville, History of Van Diemen's Land 1824-1835, p.
8 Amy Rowntree, 'English Beauty', Saturday Evening Mercury, 21/7/1965.
9 William Gatehouse's wife and one of his children had died during the voyage
10 Will details
11 Daughter of George MacMichael (1838-1864) and Jemima Daniels (1838-1919).
12 On the Macquarie River.
13 Reported in Margaret Mason-Cox,
14 Amy Rowntree, Saturday Evening Mercury12/1/1957
15 Oatlands/Jericho district.
16 23 September 1842.
17 Hobart Town Advertiser12/2/1850. Source - Stilwell Index, Allport Library.
18 Hobart Town Courier (HTC)12/6/1850
19 CSO 80/1 and CS0 80/2.
20 HTC1857 -reports not located.
21 Later removed to Buckland.
This story was originally published in 2001 by the Tasmanian Family History Society Inc in My Most Interesting Ancestor.
The original introduction to this publication may be found here.