John Macadam (29 May 1827 – 2 September 1865), was a Scottish-Australian chemist, medical doctor, medical teacher, Australian politician and cabinet minister, and honorary secretary of the Burke and Wills expedition. The genus Macadamia (macadamia nut) was named after him in 1857. He died at sea, on a voyage from Australia to New Zealand, aged 38.
Early life John Macadam was born at Northbank, Glasgow, Scotland, on 29 May 1827, the son of William Macadam (1783–1853) and Helen, née Stevenson (1803–1857). His father was a Glasgow businessman, who owned a spinning and textile printing works in Kilmarnock, and was a burgess and a bailie (magistrate) of Glasgow. His fellow industrialists and he in the craft had developed, using chemistry, the processes for the large-scale industrial printing of fabrics for which these plants in the area became known. John Macadam was privately educated in Glasgow; he studied chemistry at the Andersonian University (now the University of Strathclyde) and went for advanced study at the University of Edinburgh under Professor William Gregory. In 1846–47, he went on to serve as assistant to Professor George Wilson at the University of Edinburgh in his laboratory in Brown Square. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts that year, and in 1848, a member of the Glasgow Philosophical Society. He then studied medicine at the University of Glasgow (LFPS, MD,1854; FFPSG,1855). He was a member of what became a small dynasty of Scottish scientists and lecturers in analytical chemistry, which included, other than himself, his eldest half brother William Macadam, his immediate younger brother Stevenson Macadam (a younger brother Charles Thomas Macadam, although not involved as a scientist, was also indirectly involved in chemistry as the senior partner in Odhams, a chemical fertiliser company) and nephews William Ivison Macadam and Stevenson J. C. G. Macadam, as well as the former nephew's daughter, his great niece Elison A. Macadam. On 8 June 1855, aged 28, Macadam sailed for Melbourne in the Colony of Victoria, Australia, on the sailing ship Admiral. He arrived on 8 September 1855.
Australian academic career In 1855 he was a lecturer on chemistry and natural science at Scotch College, which had been founded four years before in 1851, having been engaged for the position before leaving Scotland. In 1857 he was awarded an MD ad eundem from the University of Melbourne in acknowledgment of his MD from the University of Glasgow. In 1857-1858 he also taught at Geelong Church of England Grammar School (now Geelong Grammar School). In 1858, he was appointed the Victorian government analytical chemist. In 1860 he became health officer to the City of Melbourne. He wrote several reports on public health. On 3 March 1862 he was appointed as the first lecturer in medicine (chemistry and practical chemistry) at the University of Melbourne School of Medicine. For the next few years he held classes for a small number of medical students in the Analytical Laboratory behind the Public Library. He was also a member of the Board of Agriculture.
Political life Macadam became a member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly of the self-governing Colony of Victoria as a radical and supporter of the Land Convention, representing Castlemaine. Appointed postmaster-general of Victoria in 1861, Macadam resigned from the legislature in 1864. He had sponsored bills on medical practitioners and adulteration of food which became law in 1862 and 1863.
Royal Society of Victoria Macadam was elected to the Philosophical Institute of Victoria in 1855 and served on its council. Between 1857 and 1862, Macadam served as honorary secretary of it and continued in that role when it became the Royal Society of Victoria in 1860, and was appointed vice-president of it in 1863. He was editor from 1855 to 1860 of first five volumes of the society's Transactions. He was active in erecting the Society's Meeting Hall (their present building) and was involved in the institute's initiative to obtain a royal charter. He saw both happen while he held office, when in January 1860, the Philosophical Institute became the Royal Society of Victoria and met in their new building.
Burke and Wills expedition
Between 1857 and 1865, Macadam served as honorary secretary to the Exploration Committee of the Royal Society of Victoria, which organised the Burke and Wills expedition. The expedition was organised by the society with the aim of crossing the continent of Australia from the south to the north coasts, map it, and collect scientific data and specimens. At that time, most of the interior of Australia had not been explored by the European settlers and was unknown to them. In 1860–61, Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills led the expedition of 19 men with that intention, crossing Australia from Melbourne in the south, to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, a distance around 2,000 miles. Three men ultimately travelled over 3,000 miles from Melbourne to the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria and back to the Depot Camp at Cooper Creek. Seven men died in the attempt, including the leaders Burke and Wills. Of the four men who reached the north coast, only one, John King, survived with the help of the indigenous people to return to Melbourne. This expedition became the first to cross the Australian continent. It was of great importance to the subsequent development of Australia and could be compared in importance to the Lewis and Clark Expedition overland to the North American Pacific Coast to the development of the United States. After the heavy death toll of the expedition, initial criticism fell on the Royal Society, but it became clear that their foresight could not have prevented the deaths and this was then widely recognised when it became known that as Secretary of the Exploration Committee of the Burke and Wills expedition, Dr. Macadam had insisted on adequate provisions for their safety.
Macadamia
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