Northgate Ward

ALEXANDER MACPHERSON PARK

Alexander McPherson was born in Scotland in 1813 and arrived in Brisbane with his wife and eight children in November 1862. At the Crown Land sales in September 1863, McPherson bought blocks at Nudgee with a total area of 680 acres and part of the land he bought included the then Nudgee Orphanage, and also now the area where this park is being dedicated.

Alexander McPherson’s first recorded work in Queensland was with the Acclimatisation Society. After that he was appointed as the Superintendent for the Board of Inquiry into Causes of Disease in Livestock and Plants. That is quite a title and I am sure was a very important role back in those days.

He was an experimental gardener who performed pioneering trials with rice and he also donated a lot of seeds to other Australian colonies.

His next role was with the Queensland Museum where he was a collector of botanical and geological specimens. Something interesting about his role at the Museum was that he did not actually retire from there until he was 78 years old. Mr Chairman someone working in a museum until they are 78 years old probably run the risk of actually becoming an exhibit themselves, so he left there at quite an age and did a lot of work for the Queensland Museum.

Throughout his career he undertook a lot of independent work, he was an experimentalist, he entered exhibits and exhibitions in Queensland, and he won a lot of medals and certificates.

Another one of his achievements was as an inventor, and he received several awards. One of the things he invented was the fence post hole punch and he also patented a fencing machine, so it was something that would have been well and truly appreciated by the Queenslanders back in those days.

Alexander McPherson died in August 1894 and he is buried at Nudgee Cemetery.

In July 2006, a new park at Jessica Cresent Banyo was dedicated to Alexander Macpherson by Cr Kim Flesser and Mrs Elizabeth Nunn (Shire of Toombul History Group).