Friends, Family and Forebears: Rev Donal

As a minister and minister's wife, Donald and Annie McLennan had a uniquely close involvement with the communities where they lived in New Zealand and Australia. In each community where they found themselves they made many close friends. They became involved in key aspects of their communities: causes, projects, marriages, babies, deaths, entertainments and achievements. These research notes provide an insight into the communities of Beauly and Alexandria (Scotland), Auckland, Timaru, and Akaroa (New Zealand) and Lithgow, Bega, Berry, Allora, and Mullumbimby (Australia) in the second half of the 19th century and early 20th century. They will assist other researchers interested in these places and the people who lived there in these times.

Growing up at Beauly, just west of Inverness, Donald imbued the culture of the Free Church of Scotland during a period of great revival. Annie Brown had grown up in the middle of a successful business supplying the cotton-printing industry on the banks of the Leven, just west of Glasgow.

Annie and Rev Donald married in South Canterbury and made a great team. In 1885 they moved to Akaroa, just outside Christchurch, and in 1890 to New South Wales. This book provides evidence that they were much-loved by each community where they worked - providing leadership and encouragement. In the process, we learn a lot about the lives and backgrounds of the members of these communities and also what other McLennans were doing nearby. This book also explores the communities where they came from in Scotland - Beauly and Alexandria - and their family heritage and forebears - thereby helping us to understand their backgrounds and motives.

Donald and Annie lived more than 100 years ago. Their lives were lived without many of the benefits we take for granted today: electric lights, telephones, motor cars and modern sanitation.

Over the period we meet many of their friends, family and McLennans who came before them - where the McLennans came from and where they moved to. Donald and Annie's family connections in Canada, Scotland, New Zealand and Australia provide an example of the Scottish diaspora.

Growing up, Bruce knew almost nothing about his great grandparents Donald and Annie McLennan but a ski trip to New Zealand in 2001 sparked his interest in their lives in Timaru and Akaroa. In Akaroa, fortuitously, there was a single photo of Rev Donald and the committee just inside the door of the Trinity Church - the church that had been built and opened in 1886, while Donald was the minister in Akaroa. Who were these people in the photo? Where had they come from? How did they co-operate together to build a new church and entertain each other? Since then, his research has taken him to many other parts of New Zealand, Lithgow district (NSW), the South Coast of NSW, the Darling Downs, Mullumbimby, Scotland and Canada. Bruce McLennan is a retired Chartered Accountant and lives on Sydney's Northern Beaches. His interests include travel, research and history. Since 2011 he has been the worldwide coordinator of a Clan project to build a worldwide on-line genealogy resource of McLennans. He is an honorary Life Member of Clan MacLennan of Australia