Alexander MacFarlane (astronomer)
Alexander MacFarlane | |
|---|---|
 Portrait by John Vanderbank | |
| Born | c. 1702 Scotland |
| Died | 23 August 1755 (aged 52–53) |
| Occupations |
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| Parent(s) | John MacFarlane and Lady Helen Arbuthnot |
Alexander MacFarlane, FRS (c. 1702 – 23 August 1755) was a Scottish merchant, planter and astronomer. Born into an aristocratic family, he graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1728. MacFarlane subsequently emigrated to the British colony of Jamaica, where he started working as a merchant before becoming a prominent landowner and political figure. He was appointed the colony's first Postmaster General in 1735 and elected to the House of Assembly of Jamaica for Saint Elizabeth Parish in 1754. At the time of his death, MacFarlane owned multiple sugar plantations and nearly 800 slaves.
MacFarlane was also an amateur astronomer who constructed observatories in Port Royal and Kingston, equipped with a variety of instruments purchased from fellow astronomer Colin Campbell. His astronomical observations, though limited in scope, resulted in MacFarlane being elected as a fellow of the Royal Society in 1746. Upon his death, he bequeathed his scientific instruments to the University of Glasgow, which the university used to established Macfarlane Observatory, the first of its kind in Britain. In the 21st century, his legacy has come under scrutiny due to MacFarlane's ownership of slaves.
Early life
[edit]
Alexander MacFarlane was born in the Kingdom of Scotland c. 1702.[1] His parents were John MacFarlane, who died in 1705, and Lady Helen Arbuthnot, a noblewoman who was the daughter of Robert Arbuthnot, 2nd Viscount of Arbuthnott; the Arbuthnot family's motto was Astra castra, Numen lumen (the stars my camp, the Lord my light).[2][3] The youngest of four sons, MacFarlane studied at the University of Glasgow, graduating from the university with a Master of Arts degree in 1728. He subsequently immigrated to Jamaica, where half the island's white population during the 18th century were Scots.[4][5]
Career in Jamaica and death
[edit]In Jamaica, MacFarlane began working as a merchant and gradually accumulated substantial landholdings in the colony.[4] By 1735, he had become a prosperous businessman and assistant judge who owned several sugar plantations operated with the forced labour of enslaved Black people. In November of that year, MacFarlane was appointed the first Postmaster General of Jamaica by the colonial government. Twelve years later, in 1747, he purchased the "Biscany" slave plantation in Saint Elizabeth Parish.[3] In 1754, MacFarlane was elected to the House of Assembly of Jamaica representing that parish.[2]
Alongside his commercial and political pursuits, MacFarlane developed a keen amateur interest in astronomy and mathematics.[3] At a residence of his in Port Royal, he commissioned the construction of a private observatory, outfitted with instruments purchased from Colin Campbell, a fellow Scotsman who had settled in Jamaica and become a merchant and planter. An associate of British astronomers Edmond Halley and Joseph Harris, Campbell was admitted as a fellow of the Royal Society on 7 November 1734 thanks to Halley. Campbell had established his own observatory in Jamaica in 1731 to study and catalogue the southern celestial hemisphere.[6]
Although the historical record is unclear over when MacFarlane acquired all of Campbell's astronomical equipment, by 1743 he had purchased the last pieces of equipment. MacFarlane oversaw the construction of a new observatory in Kingston, where the newly-purchased astronomical equipment was installed in. The observatory was an "imposing" Georgian-style building with a flat roof and hand rail. MacFarlane had a four-foot mural arch erected on a wall, with a five-foot transit telescope, one-month regulator clock and five-foot zenith sector installed elsewhere in the observatory. Finding the zenith sector cumbersome to use, MacFarlane designed a new horizontal reflecting sector and in 1755 commissioned Swiss instrument maker Pierre Martel, who maintained his equipment, to build it.[4]
In November 1743, MacFarlane sent a letter detailing his astronomical observations to Scottish telescope maker James Short. Short subsequently travelled to London and read the letter to his fellow members at the Royal Society, nominating MacFarlane for fellowship alongside scholar James Burrow on 20 November 1746. Although his scientific contributions were "fairly minimal in modern terms", MacFarlane was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society on 19 February 1747. He continued to send astronomical reports to the society, including MacFarlane's observations of lunar eclipses and the transit of Mercury, until his death on 23 August 1755.[4] At the time of his death, MacFarlane was in possession of a large fortune alongside 791 enslaved people spread across six sugar plantations.[3]
Legacy
[edit]After his death, MacFarlane's observatory in Kingston was eventually converted by British colonial authorities in Jamaica into the Surrey County jail after the county was established in 1758. As he never married, the majority of his estate was left in his last will and testament, written on 23 August 1755 and entered into the legal record on 9 September 1755, to MacFarlane's two brothers, Walter and William, including the "Serge Island", "Biscany", "Bog Pen", "Glen Goff", "Lennox Castle" and "Windsor" slave plantations. MacFarlane also gave varying amounts of money to his family relatives and appointed John Arbuthnot, 5th Viscount of Arbuthnott to hand over the plantations to Walter and William.[2][3] The will also stipulated that the following would be donated to the University of Glasgow:
all my mathematickal instruments: a foor foot Moor alarch [sic] made of brass, a five foot meridian transit, a five foot astronomical sector, a small clock and an instrument of foour foot equal altitude and likewise object, and other globes for three telescopes and three micrometers, also some variation needles and some other small things.[7][8]
The equipment was transported from Jamaica to Scotland on board the British merchantman Casar, and the university took possession of them on 29 October 1756. As they had been damaged during the voyage due to being thrown around in Casar's hold, university officials contracted Scottish mechanical engineer James Watt to repair the equipment, paying him £5 for his services; Watt had studied in London and upon returning to Glasgow served as an instrument maker to the University of Glasgow.[9] In the next year, the university established an observatory using MacFarlane's instruments, with university professors and local magistrates laying the foundation stone on 17 August 1757.[10][11] Named Macfarlane Observatory in his honour, it was the first such observatory of its type in Britain.[8]
In the 21st century, MacFarlane's ownership of slaves has come under greater scrutiny. The University of Glasgow published a report titled "Slavery, Abolition and The University of Glasgow" in 2018, which had been created by the university's "History of Slavery Steering Committee" as part of a "programme of education and reparative justice."[12] In the report, which detailed the university's relationship with slavery, race and abolitionism, academics Stephen Mullen and Simon Newman noted that MacFarlane's bequest, which they described as "very significant", "helped facilitate the founding of the Regius Professor of Astronomy in 1760".[8] In 2019, the University of Glasgow announced that it would raise and spend £20m as slavery reparations, the first UK institution to do so.[13]
References
[edit]Footnotes
[edit]- ^ MacKechnie 2020, p. 9.
- ^ a b c MacFarlane 2021, p. 127.
- ^ a b c d e Legacies of British Slavery 2023.
- ^ a b c d Clarke 2013, pp. 51–52.
- ^ McMillan 2012.
- ^ Stearns 1970, pp. 374–375.
- ^ Nelson 2016, p. 143.
- ^ a b c Mullen & Newman 2018, p. 53.
- ^ Mullen 2020, p. 49.
- ^ Dickinson 2010, p. 24.
- ^ Clarke 2013, pp. 60–99.
- ^ Mullen & Newman 2018, p. 5.
- ^ Capella 2019.
Bibliography
[edit]Books
[edit]- Clarke, David (2013). Reflections on the Astronomy of Glasgow. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-7891-4.
- Dickinson, H. W. (2010) [1936]. James Watt: Craftsman and Engineer. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-1080-1223-2.
- MacFarlane, James (2021) [1922]. History of Clan MacFarlane. Legare Street Press. ISBN 978-1-0137-1668-3.
- Mullen, Stephen (2020). Archer, Caroline; Dick, Malcolm (eds.). James Watt (1736-1819): Culture, Innovation and Enlightenment. Liverpool University Press. ISBN 978-1-7896-2082-5.
- MacKechnie, Aonghus (2020). Humm, Louisa (ed.). Architecture of Scotland, 1660-1750. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-1-4744-5528-2.
- Nelson, Louis P. (2016). Architecture and Empire in Jamaica. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-3002-1100-9.
- Stearns, Raymond Phineas (1970). Science in the British Colonies of America. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-2520-0120-8.
Websites
[edit]- "Alexander Macfarlane". Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery. Retrieved 21 January 2023.
- Capella, Hannah (23 August 2019). "Glasgow University's 'bold' move to pay back slave trade profits". BBC News. Retrieved 28 June 2025.
- McMillan, Joyce (30 June 2022). "Book review: Bought and Sold - Scotland, Jamaica and Slavery, by Kate Phillips". The Scotsman. Retrieved 28 June 2025.
- Mullen, Stephen; Newman, Simon (2018). "Slavery, Abolition and the University of Glasgow" (PDF). University of Glasgow. Retrieved 17 January 2023.