Arthur Macalister

Arthur Macalister was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1818 to cabinet maker John Macalister and Mary Macalister (nee Scoullar). In Edinburgh he married his wife Elizabeth Wallace Tassie and emigrated to Sydney via the Abbotsford on the 28^th of September 1839.

He worked as a clerk of Petty Sessions and postmaster at Scone, New South Wales in June 1840 for one year before starting a general store in 1842, the same year that his estate was sequestrated. Over the next few years, he began training to become a solicitor in Sydney and in 1850 he passed the examination. He began his practice in Ipswich.

In 1859, Queensland separated from New South Wales and Macalister won one of the three seats for Ipswich in Queensland’s first Legislative Assembly. In 1862, he joined the Herbert ministry as secretary for Public Lands and Works and became Premier after Herbert’s resignation in 1866. His ministry, however, only lasted for six months as he resigned due to Governor Sir George Bowen refusing to sanction a proposed issue of “inconvertible government notes”. The Governor had Herbert create a new ministry which carried Queensland through a financial crisis. Shortly after, Herbert had to leave Australia and return to England and so Macalister became Premier again in August of 1866.

One year later Macalister resigned as he began having health problems which left him disabled and went on to became Chairman of Committees. In 1868, Charles Lilley became Premier, and Macalister became the Secretary for Public Lands and Works and for the goldfields. He then went on to become Speaker after the resignation of the ministry in 1870 and again in 1872. He formed his third ministry in 1874 and the following year he collapsed as stress affected his already deteriorating health. He resigned for the last time in 1876 to become Agent-General for Queensland in London. For the indecisiveness in his political career, he was given the nickname ‘Slippery Mac’. He was known as a highly skilled tactician and debater who could shift between issues with ease as he had a mind as quick as his tongue.

In 1876, he was created Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George.

At the age of 64 in 1881 he began having further health problems and was granted a pension by the Queensland parliament. He returned to the Glasgow area and dying at age 65 on the 23rd of March 1883. His wife Elizabeth returned to Queensland before dying in Brisbane in 1894. Together they had nine children.