Clan Munro Australia Newsletter of the Clan Munro (Association) Australia Volume 13 Issue 2 August 2015 Have you visited our Website at http://clanmunroassociation.org.au Chat This Month Our chief, Hector, has given me Chat Page 1 permission to use this picture from Welcome Page 1 the Scots Heritage Magazine & Alexander Munro (Cont.) Page 2 the editor has given permission to Anatomists, ‘Mad’ Doctors & reprint Hector’s story from the Bonesetters Page 4 magazine - I will do that in a later Vale Mabel Marjery Munro Page 5 newsletter. I made the very basic New Books Page 7 mistake of not saving the Can you Help Page 8 newsletter, lost it and was unable Membership Page 8 to retrieve it & so had to re-do this Issue. What I am so sorry about is that I am unable to name & thank the member who sent me the Next Newsletter picture. I thank you anyway & you know who you are!! Deep ancestry of the Munros of Foulis The big Munro thing at the Reports on the Glen Innes Gathering, moment is DNA and specifically Fasifern Gathering, Bundanoon the DNA of Pres. James Monroe of Gathering, Armadale (WA) Gathering the USA. Researchers have been trying for years o prove that he is and Anzac Day Sydney 2015. descended from the Munros of Kiltearn and now, through DNA testing, they have made that link . But more Munros need to be Anatomists, ‘Mad’ Doctors & tested. Two of these researchers are Mark Monroe from the USA and Bonesetters (Cont.) Colin Munro from Glasgow. I will be using an article from each of these gentlemen in the next two newsletters. For now Colin asks this Don “Does anyone know of a Donald Munro, christened at Kiltearn, Ross- shire on 6 December 1825? He was the son of Andrew Munro of Bogriach and Esther Munro, daughter of John Munro of Evanton, and hence a descendant of the Katewell branch of the Munro family, from which US President James Monroe is said to come. Donald is said to have married in Glasgow and emigrated to Australia, perhaps about 1850. Please contact [email protected] with any information.” Also check out http://www.deadlinenews.co.uk/2015/06/11/us-founding-father-descended-from-highland-clan-chief-dna-project- proves/ and you will see that this article shows that the DNA of at least two people has proved that they match both Pres Monroe and the Foulis line - Enrique Munro from Chile and myself. But I repeat, more Munros are need to be tested so that we can find out where we join the Foulis line. If two Munros from such varied backgrounds as Enrique and myself are from that line, then there must be many more out there. So please get in touch with me and I will get you started. Welcome To Our New Members Three new members to welcome this month. Ian Gordon Scott, husband of the late and much loved Morna Mack Scott whose obituary we printed in the April Newsletter. Heather Elsa Green has once again gifted ten year memberships to her newest grandchildren, Beatrix Clara Buxton and Theodore Thomas Weber. That’s four grandchildren Heather has made members – brilliant!! Clan Munro Australia Newsletter 39 Page 1 Alexander Munro 1814 - 1889 In the April Newsletter we printed the first part of Alexander Munro’s story from Jillian Oppenheimer’s “Munro’s Luck.” We now complete Alexander’s story. He had made his home in Singleton and this is where, by shrewd investment, he built his successful business empire. In 1847 Munro began his pastoral investments benefit, however, from the depression was Alexander when he purchased the depasturing rights to the Munro who was able, with his carefully accumulated squatting run named New Andle (later Nuandle) - an profits, to buy cheaply much of Singleton's land and area of some 56,320 the northern squatting runs with their long term leases acres on the Bundarra guaranteed after the land legislation of 1847. river in northern New Many Munro family members left the Black Isle and South Wales. He held it traditional Munro lands to find a better life in the British until 1852 when he sold it colonies in the 1840s and 1850s. Alexander Munro, for £4,100, retaining a with a conscience for the welfare of his clan members cattle station at Barraba. and a knowledge of their capacity for hard work, Ardersier House This was later known as assisted them to make their homes in New South Barraba Detached (or The Wales. Woolshed) which he sold to the Donald Munro family. One such family to benefit from his generosity and In 1848 he acquired similar rights to the 16,000 acre practical help was Donald Munro. In September 1848 Tariaro property (later Wallah) on the Namoi river, in he arrived to take up a position on his kinsman's the Narrabri district, which he later sold for £5,000. Two recently acquired Tariaro property near Narrabri. years later in 1850 he acquired Woolabra (later Other Munros to be employed by Alexander Munro Dobiken) which he held until he sold it for £22,000 in included a Hugh Munro who had left his home town 1865. He was also to buy the grazing properties Ardersier in Scotland in about 1845 and worked for a Glencairn and Glen Munro near Denman, and Yorkshire firm constructing breakwaters and Mundewoi near Singleton in the Hunter valley. From fortifications in the Channel Islands, where he met 1860 however his adventurous spirit sought enterprises and married his French wife, Marie Shade. Possibly closer to home as he established vineyards near assisted by Alexander Munro they migrated in 1854 to Singleton, first the Bebeah Vineyard, to which he New South Wales. He became a farrier and added the forty acres of Greenwood, purchased for blacksmith in Singleton working first for Alexander $3,500 in 1870. In 1878 he completed his last home, Munro before he set up his own business. He had no Ardersier House, named after the place of his birth children but his death is noted on the same memorial and overlooking his acres of vines and the winery. stone at Singleton in the Glenridding cemetery as The financial investment necessary to set up a Alexander Munro. Hugh Munro's brother James also large-scale wine production with its cellars and emigrated to Singleton in 1865 where, unmarried, he extensive buildings was considerable. The wine spent his life working as an engineer. Another making plant alone cost £7,000. Presumably some of it kinsman, William Mackenzie, nephew of Donald was imported but one of his kinsmen, William Munro, who had migrated with his parents, Donald Ardersier House Mackenzie, who later managed the operation, Mackenzie and Ann Munro to Australia from Canada, became skilled at making wine casks from local returned to spend his life as the manager of Australian cedar. The unpredictable seasons were Alexander Munro's Bebeah vineyards. He was still in difficult for consistent winegrowing and Munro wrote this position when Alexander Munro died and left him to his family in Scotland in 1885 explaining that a bequest of £1,000.25 although he had produced 43,000 gallons of wine Apart from his generosity to his family members nine years before he had only made 10,000 gallons Alexander Munro was renowned for his benefactions during the previous season. Nevertheless he to the Singleton community. He gave land for a produced high quality wines that were to earn him an Presbyterian cemetery and left £1,000 in trust to the international reputation with prizes won in Europe in Presbyterian England, France, Holland and Germany, in India and minister, Rev. also in the United States of America. White, for the use It was during the period of expansion of his grazing of the church and interests that he must have been in renewed contact to form a with his family in Scotland. In New South Wales the substantial 1830s had been a period of boom when the suitability contribution to of Australian pastures for stock production, and build the new particularly merino wool, became well known in church finally Europe. There was high capital borrowing and opened in 1906. expenditure as sheep prices soared. This was followed He made a donation in his will of Mayor of Singleton in the 1840s by the inevitable crash with its $100 to the Masonic Lodge accompanying bankruptcies. One of those to Temple to which he had contributed in 1864, and had Clan Munro Australia Newsletter 39 Page 2 co-founded in 1849. He gave land for a Mechanic's Alexander Munro was proud to be called an Institute, for the Grammar School founded in 1875, of Australian and during his travels in 1878 he told one of which he was a trustee, and the Hunter River Building his friends in Scotland that, if anything happened to Society. He was a founder of the Oddfellows Lodge him that he should die before returning, his bones and a vice president of the Northern Agricultural were to be buried in Australia. He had travelled round Association from 1868. He gave more than £1,000 to the world but found no land like Australia. Although build a wing and other sections of the Benevolent he considered that Australia was his home, Alexander Asylum, or hospital and bequeathed it a £500 legacy did not forget Scotland and kept in touch, regularly as well as paying for an annual feast for the patients. receiving copies of the Scotsman and Inverness Courier He donated the first gas works to the town and paid newspapers.