William John Macleay

Sir William John Macleay (13 June 1820 – 7 December 1891) was an Australian politician, naturalist, zoologist, and herpetologist.

Macleay was born at Wick, Caithness, Scotland, second son of Kenneth Macleay of Keiss and his wife Barbara, née Horne. Macleay was educated at the Edinburgh Academy 1834–36 and then to studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh; but when he was 18 years old his widowed mother died, and he decided to go to Australia with his cousin, William Sharp MacLeay. They arrived at Sydney in March 1839 on HMS Royal George. William Macleay took up land at first near Goulburn, and afterwards on the Murrumbidgee River.

On 1 March 1855 Macleay was elected to the old Legislative Council as member for the Lachlan and Lower Darling Pastoral District. After responsible government, on 19 April 1856 Macleay was elected to the Legislative Assembly for the Lachlan and Lower Darling serving until 11 April 1859. From 1860–1874 he represented Murrumbidgee in the Assembly.

Macleay lived in Sydney from 1857, the year he was married to Susan Emmeline Deas-Thomson, and was now able to develop his interest in science. He had made a small collection of insects, and in 1861 began to extend it considerably. In April 1862 a meeting was held at his house and it was decided to found a local Entomological Society. Macleay was elected president and held the position for two years. The society lasted 11 years and, not only was Macleay the author of the largest number of papers, he also bore most of the expense. He had succeeded to the Macleay collection on the death of W. S. Macleay in 1865, and in 1874 decided to extend it from an entomological collection into a zoological collection. Also in 1874 the Linnean Society of New South Wales was founded, of which Macleay was elected the first president, and in May 1875, having fitted up the barque Chevert, he sailed for New Guinea, where he obtained what he described as "a vast and valuable collection" of zoological specimens.

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