Isaac MACKAY

MACKAY, ISAAC (b. Armadale, Isle of Skye, Scotland, Nov 1839; d. near Grafton, NSW, 3 Mar 1900). Presbyterian minister.

Mackay trained for the ministry in the Free Church of Scotland College, Edinburgh and went as a licentiate to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, in 1862. He was principal of Sydney Academy there 1862-64 and ordained and inducted to Gabarus Congregation on 18 July 1864. He resigned the charge in Oct 1866 and returned to Scotland. Coming to Australia in 1867, Mackay preached in several places in Victoria without joining the PCV, went north and organised a congregation on the Gympie goldfields in 1868 and then became minister at Warwick in 1869. He was Moderator of the PCQ Assembly in May 1873 when he sought admission into the PCEA, 'believing it to be in doctrine and government the purest and most scriptural church in these colonies'. He was received on 13 Aug 1873 and inducted to Grafton 24 June 1874 where he had opportunity to use his facility in Gaelic, many of the people being of Skye descent. Despite the painful schism which affected the PCEA from 1884 and much reduced his congregation, Mackay remained in this charge until his sudden death.

Mackay was a cultured gentleman, a good scholar and a dogged, level-headed minister of modest means. He was much interested in foreign missions and the Bible Society and was clerk of the Synod 1885-1900. He represented the definite evangelical Calvinism which was then suffering an eclipse in the wider community but which was also being constricted by the reactions of a fearful Highland community both in Scotland and Australia.

Mackay married Emily King in 1881 by whom he had three children. The eldest, Iven (1882-1966), later Lieutenant-General Sir Iven, showed his military skill at an early age: for the next fifty years the evidence of teenage target practice was to be seen in the bullet marks on the back wall of the church in Fry Street.

I Chapman, Iven G Mackay, Citizen and Soldier (Melbourne, 1975); J Murray, The History of the Presbyterian Church in Cape Breton (Truro, 1921); R S Ward, The Bush Still Burns (Melbourne, 1989)

ROWLAND S WARD