The McKinnon Family Story

A family in motion

Coll. Cornwall. Westmorland. Australia.

This family history brings together Malcolm McKinnon's research, family trees, certificates, correspondence, photographs, field recordings and the stories passed between generations. It follows the McKinnons from the Isle of Coll, the Fawcetts from Westmorland, the Faulls from Cornwall and the Waddy and Drake families of South Australia.

Some early records disagree on a date or spelling. Where the archive does not settle a question, the story says so rather than filling the gap with a guess.

893archive files

619photographs and image variants reviewed

268document extraction outputs reviewed

8family recordings transcribed

The people

Explore the family tree

Drag to move around the tree, scroll or pinch to zoom, and select a person to read their story.

McKinnon Fawcett Faull Waddy & Drake

The places

A family journey across the world

Each point records a birthplace, home, death, voyage or important chapter in the family's history. Zoom and drag the map, then select a point for details.

Before 1857

The Isle of Coll

Crofting life and the Highland Clearances

The known McKinnon line begins with Hugh McKinnon and Ann Campbell on the Isle of Coll in the Inner Hebrides. Their descendants lived as crofters in a period when traditional Highland communities were being reshaped by changing land ownership, rising rents and clearance. By the 1850s the Highland and Island Emigration Society was helping families leave for the Australian colonies.

Coll's population rose from about 938 people in 1776 to 1,409 in 1841, then fell sharply as famine, poverty and pressure on small crofts drove migration. Family records place the McKinnons on the Aidnegoon estate. Eighty-one people from Coll joined the Persian, making the voyage part of a much wider departure from the island.

Malcolm McKinnon and Flora Fraser's son Donald, his wife Flora Fletcher and their children became part of that migration. Their departure was not simply a change of address. It ended generations of island life and began a journey to the other side of the world.

1857-1858

The voyage of the Persian

Liverpool to quarantine at Impression Bay

The 1,068-ton Persian, owned by the White Star Line and commanded by Patrick Richard Kerr, sailed from Liverpool in late July 1857 with about 325 assisted immigrants. Surgeon Joseph Gray was responsible for their health. Typhus appeared after roughly three weeks at sea. Fourteen people died during the voyage, with further deaths after the ship reached Hobart on 31 October.

The passengers were quarantined at Impression Bay, now Premaydena. Family matriarch Flora Fraser died during the voyage. Her son John died soon after arrival, and Donald and Flora's infant John died in quarantine after living only three days. Thirty-five fever cases were recorded when the ship arrived. The surviving passengers remained at Impression Bay until January 1858.

The family records preserve two departure dates, 25 and 26 July. The surviving McKinnons left Tasmania in early 1858 and crossed to Victoria, carrying a story of loss and endurance that later generations returned to Premaydena to commemorate.

The wooded shoreline at Premaydena in Tasmania — Premaydena, formerly Impression Bay, where the Persian passengers were quarantined.

Land record showing the McKinnon property at Yabba South — The land record locating Donald McKinnon's property at Yabba South.

1858-1912

A start in Victoria

Beveridge, Yabba South and the north-east

After a period at Beveridge, Donald and Flora's family became part of the farming communities around Yabba South, Katandra, Dookie and Benalla. Donald, born on Coll in 1822, became a farmer. He died at Tatong in 1892 and was buried at Katandra. Flora, born on Mull, died in 1890. Land records and cemetery research trace their Australian-born children through northern Victoria.

Their family included Mary, Alexander, Angus, Malcolm, John Simon, Euphemia, Florence, Ellen and Catherine. Mary married John Sutherland at Benalla in 1874 and settled near Katandra. Photographs, family notes and a memorial at the old property preserve the Sutherland branch alongside the direct McKinnon line.

Their son Angus, born in 1863, later moved north into New South Wales. Around 1912 the family entered a new chapter at Burrandana, south of Wagga.

1874 onward

The Sutherland connection

Mary McKinnon and a new family at Katandra

Donald and Flora's daughter Mary, born in 1853 on Mull, married John Sutherland at Benalla Presbyterian Church on 13 March 1874. John was 41 and Mary was 19. They made their home in the Katandra and Nagambie districts and raised a large family whose photographs became an important part of Malcolm's research.

Family recollections describe Mary as a generous host with a strong personality. The surviving album records John and Mary, their children and later gatherings at the family's weatherboard home. This collateral branch helped reconnect the McKinnon story to the land and graves around Katandra.

Portraits of John Sutherland and Mary Sutherland, born McKinnon — John Sutherland and Mary Sutherland, born McKinnon.

c.1912-1939

Burrandana

A small farm south of Wagga

Angus and Rachel McKinnon moved north around 1912 and established a small property at Burrandana. Title records place the holding at about 37 acres by 1921. Their six children grew up there, including Angus Norman, the youngest. A son, Alexander, had died at two years of age.

When Angus died in 1934, the eldest son Donald helped support Rachel, his three sisters and Angus Norman. Family recordings made during later visits remember the old track, the nearby hall and the family's work on the property. The surviving house, graves, maps and photographs give this part of the story an unusually physical presence.

1807 onward

The Fawcett line

From Westmorland to Singleton and Wagga

James Fawcett and Agnes Relph married at Ravenstonedale in Westmorland in 1807. Their son Richard came to New South Wales and established the family around Singleton and Glenridding. The next generation moved through education and public service: Richard James Fawcett became a teacher, headmaster and school inspector.

Richard Sandford Fawcett and Florence Shoemark's daughter Ivy was born at Humula. Ivy's daughter Elsie married Angus Norman McKinnon at Wagga in 1939, bringing the Fawcett and McKinnon stories together. The family papers do not conclusively identify Elsie's father.

Ivy later married Keith Tuchin, a railway signalman and First World War veteran. During the war a pocket New Testament reportedly stopped shrapnel at Pozières. In 1932 Keith drowned in the Murrumbidgee after rescuing his son Dudley and the teenage Elsie. His life links the Fawcett family to Wagga, the railway and Moss Vale.

Portrait of Susannah Maria Fawcett, born Williams — Susannah Maria Fawcett, born Williams.

Susannah Maria Fawcett with Mabel and Daisy — Susannah with Mabel standing and Daisy seated.

1700s-1900s

The Faull, Waddy and Drake lines

Cornish mines, South Australian towns and Western Australia

The Faull family came from the Cornish mining country around Crowan and Camborne. Samuel Faull and Elizabeth Anne Rodda reached South Australia in 1857, the same year the McKinnons crossed the world aboard the Persian. Their descendants moved through South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia.

Samuel and Elizabeth married in 1856 before emigrating. The long Faull line in Cornwall reaches back through mine foremen and working families recorded around Crowan. In Australia it joined the Rodda family and moved through South Australia, Lauriston, Bunbury, Boulder and Perth.

The Waddy line was established in South Australia. Richard William Mackie Waddy, born at Kapunda in 1848, became a senior postal official and justice of the peace. His daughter-in-law Eva May Drake was remembered as a writer, artist, pianist, singer, health advocate and active participant in civic life. Eva and Ernest Waddy's daughter Charmian married Gordon Cummins Faull at St Peter's Anglican Church in South Australia in 1943. Their daughter Christina later married Malcolm McKinnon.

1939-1964

Malcolm's early years

Farms, a lakeside store and an engineering education

Angus Norman left school early, worked on farms and was remembered as a keen cricketer and tennis player. He married Elsie in 1939. Deirdre was born in 1941 and Malcolm in Wagga in 1942. The family worked at Ashfords from about 1944 and McPherson's from 1948 until the lease ended around 1952. Angus Norman later partnered Bill Jerrick in a store at Lake Albert.

In 1954 they moved to Campaspe Park near Goornong, followed by Wipplegong near Axedale. Malcolm attended Bendigo Junior Technical College and the Bendigo School of Mines, where he became president of the students' representative council and earned a Diploma of Electrical Engineering. Work with Satchwell Controls, Wrightcell and Alcoa opened the way to a career built around large industrial projects and emerging control systems.

The McPherson's property where the family once lived — McPherson's, one of the properties in Malcolm's early family story.

1966 onward

Engineering across Australia and the Pacific

Weipa, the Pilbara, Fiji and Sydney

In 1966 Malcolm became site electrical engineer at Weipa, working with CRA, the Commonwealth Engineering Service and Comalco. Design work in Perth led to Dampier and Tom Price, where he became a site electrical project engineer in 1969. Malcolm met Christina when she was secretary to the site engineering manager. They married in 1971, and Angus was born at Tom Price that December.

Work with Baulderstone Electrical took Malcolm through the Pilbara and a smelter project at Tennant Creek. Katrina was born before the family moved to Suva, where Malcolm worked with Balfour Beatty. They returned to Australia in 1976. Duncan was born before the family moved to Sydney in 1982.

At Kilpatrick Green, Malcolm helped build an engineering group of 40 to 60 engineers and programmers working on advanced industrial control systems. He later moved through Balfour Beatty, Computer Systems Engineering, Computer Way, Wholesale Direct and Halescom. Halescom grew to about 80 staff during the technology boom. Further consulting and technology ventures followed before Malcolm retired in 2009 and began assembling this family archive.

1978-2009

Finding the story again

Recordings, road trips and family memory

The archive is also the record of how the history was recovered. A 1978-79 journey through Tatong, Mansfield, Katandra, Burrandana and Wagga captured conversations, local directions and family Bible entries on tape. Relatives brought out unlabelled photographs, a pocket watch, table linen and household objects that had belonged to earlier generations.

Angus retraced much of the route in 2009, photographing farms, cemeteries, maps, memorials and the remains of family homes. Malcolm corresponded with researchers and descendants in Australia, Scotland and Tasmania for decades. He returned to Premaydena in 2005 and helped ensure the Persian passengers were represented at the historic cemetery; Angus visited in 2009. The result is not one perfect record, but hundreds of documents and images that preserve how the family remembered itself.

From the archive

Faces, places and records from the archive

A selection from the family photographs and the 2009 research journey.

Portrait of Mary Sutherland, born McKinnon — Mary Sutherland, born McKinnon, daughter of Donald and Flora.

The Sutherland family gathered for a photograph — A Sutherland family gathering preserved in the Katandra album.

A large Sutherland family group — The extended Sutherland family.

Susannah Fawcett with Mabel and Daisy — Susannah with Mabel standing and Daisy seated.

Map of the McKinnon property at Yabba South — The McKinnon property at Yabba South.

Memorial marking the Sutherland property — The memorial placed at the former Sutherland property.

McKinnon family house at Burrandana — The Burrandana house.

Mail addressed to the McKinnon family at Burrandana — An address linking the McKinnons to Burrandana.

Grave of Angus and Rachel McKinnon — The grave of Angus and Rachel McKinnon.

Ashfords near Lake Albert — Ashfords, where the family lived in the 1940s.

The McPherson's property — McPherson's, where the family farmed from about 1948.

Historic information at Impression Bay — The history of the Impression Bay convict and probation station.

Impression Bay sign at Premaydena — Impression Bay, later Premaydena.

Historic panel listing deaths among Persian passengers — The memorial panel records Scottish immigrants who died after the *Persian* reached Tasmania.

Impression Bay cemetery — Among the surviving headstones at Impression Bay.

How this was assembled

Family records and living memory

This account is drawn from Malcolm McKinnon's family histories and research files, family-tree workbooks, correspondence, certificates, passenger lists, cemetery records, photographs and recordings collected over many years. The digital archive contains 893 files in 47 folders. Every accessible file was inventoried and reviewed for this edition, including legacy Lotus spreadsheets, Word documents, PDFs, image scans, audio and video. Three source files could not be retrieved through Google Drive: a saved web page, a duplicate compilation of the family tapes and one large cemetery video. Their available companion files and source notes were reviewed.

Many files are duplicates or working copies, and some handwritten or early spreadsheet records remain difficult to read. Dates and relationships shown here use the clearest authored narratives and corroborating records. The history can be refined as certificates, photographs and family recollections add detail.