IX. 
“Tn company with a friend, I visited the Colonial Museum, which is arranged for the present in a 
small room, assigned for the purpose, in the Council-House, and which had been recently established in 
Sydney ; it forms an excellent nucleus for a splendid collection, particularly in a country so prolific in rare, 
valuable, and beautiful specimens of natural productions. . . . The commencement of the public 
Museum is excellent ; and Science, I believe, is indebted for it to the Honourable Alexander Macleay, 
Colonial Secretary; and may he see it attain an importance which no one can enjoy or appreciate more 
than himself, who has devoted the leisure moments of a long and arduous life engaged in other important 
occupations, to the study of the Natural Sciences. . . . To George Macleay, Esq.,* the Museum is 
indebted for many valuable species of birds, which he had collected during his arduous journey in the 
exploration of the course of the Murrumbidgee River, in the expedition under Captain Sturt. . . . The 
Council has liberally granted the sum of two hundred pounds annually out of the colonial funds for the 
support of the Museum.” + 
A few years later the collection had become of sufficient importance to allow of 
the issue of the first “Catalogue of the Specimens of Natural History, &c., in the 
Australian Museum,” an 8vo. pamphlet of seventy-one pages published in 1837, long 
since out of print; and there must be very few colonial publications with a better 
claim than this Catalogue to be considered the first contribution, humble though it 
be, to the literature of natural history printed in Australia. It belongs to the 
primitive era when Sydney had a population of about 20,000 (19,729 at the time of 
the census of 1836), and to the very year in which Governor Bourke visited Port 
Phillip and approved of the site which Captain Lonsdale had selected, whereupon 
Mr. Hoddle, surveyor, “laid out the town of Melbourne and the Governor gave it its 
name.” At this time the Australian Museum was managed by a committee consisting 
of Alexander Macleay, Esq., J. V. Thompson, Esq., Captain P. P. King, R.N., the 
Hon. E. Deas-Thomson, M.C., Charles Sturt, Esq., and George Macleay, Esq., 
with George Bennett, Esq., as Hon. Secretary. It was “open for the inspection of 
the public every Tuesday and Friday from 11 to 4”; and among the exhibits the 
most noticeable were specimens of thirty-six species of indigenous mammals and 
of three hundred and seventeen species of Australian birds, other orders being 
represented by smaller and less representative collections; in addition there were 
a few examples of foreign genera, as well as some ethnological and geological 
specimens. 
Witiiam Saarp Macteay, second son of Alexander Macleay, was born in London 
July 21st, 1792, and was educated at Westminster, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, 
graduating with honours in 1814. Shortly after leaving Cambridge he was 
* Third son of Alexander Macleay, afterwards Sir George Macleay, K.C.M.G. He came out to the colony shortly 
after his father, and accompanied Captain Sturt in his expedition of 1829-30. For several years he represented the 
Murrumbidgee electorate : but shortly afterwards severed his connection with the colonies. He died at Mentone, in June, 
1891, in his 82nd year. 
The last of this branch of the family, Mr. James Robert Macleay, died in London on October 28th, 1892, aged 81 
years. He entered the Foreign Office many years ago, and spent some years at the Cape of Good Hope as Registrar to the 
Mixed Commission for the suppression of the slave trade. He also in his younger days visited Australia, 
+ Wanderings in New South Wales, &c., being the Journal of a Naturalist in these Countries during the years 
1832-34. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1834. 
b 

