You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
all was right there in front of me. Poor old<br />
Mac, how weak and frail he was as I helped<br />
him out of the boat.” And later (on Page135),<br />
Burdett refers to <strong>McPhee</strong>’s: “thin and wasted<br />
shoulders”.<br />
Burdett pays this tribute to Robert C Scarlett<br />
<strong>McPhee</strong> on Page 213 of The Odyssey of a<br />
Digger: “Dear old <strong>McPhee</strong>, possibly the<br />
greatest of them all, died in the Nullagine<br />
district, still optimistically chasing his<br />
rainbow’s end.” Page 213.<br />
De Havelland, in his book Gold and Ghosts<br />
(Hesperian Press Carlile 6101 WA 1985) copies<br />
something of the sentiments of Burdett in<br />
referring to <strong>McPhee</strong>’s “rainbow’s end” when<br />
he says on Page 41:<br />
“<strong>McPhee</strong>, the discoverer of the gold bearing<br />
creek named after him, left the area for<br />
Nullagine still chasing the rainbow’s end.<br />
Before he died, he and his two blacks,<br />
Thursday and Friday, found two rich patches<br />
of gold. One gave up three thousand ounces<br />
within a few days, the other slightly more. All<br />
the gold was won on the surface.”<br />
<strong>John</strong> <strong>McPhee</strong> <strong>Family</strong><br />
How did the child Robert <strong>McPhee</strong> come to<br />
be called Robert C Scarlett? He was named<br />
Scarlett after the owner of the Inverlochy<br />
Estate, the Lord Abinger, whose family name<br />
was Scarlett.<br />
Abinger had only come into the Estate a few<br />
years before the little Robert’s birth, having<br />
purchased it some time after the tragic 1836<br />
death in London of the Marquis of Huntly of<br />
the Gordon Clan.<br />
The widowed Lady Gordon went to live<br />
at Drinnin, where, coincidentally, she was<br />
visited by Mary MacKillop on her journey to<br />
that part of the world in 1873. And Queen<br />
Victoria herself visited and stayed a few days<br />
at the new Inverlochy Castle in 1873, twenty<br />
years after the <strong>McPhee</strong> family had emigrated<br />
to Australia. Little Robert C Scarlett <strong>McPhee</strong><br />
came close to a silver spoon to put in his<br />
mouth.<br />
Dr Cathie Clement published a short<br />
biography of Robert C Scarlett <strong>McPhee</strong> in the<br />
Boab Bulletin, the journal of the Kimberly<br />
Society. She has very kindly given the <strong>McPhee</strong><br />
family her permission to reprint her article.<br />
Dr Cathie Clement is a consulting historian<br />
who specializes in the history of Australia’s<br />
North-West and is currently vice president of<br />
the Kimberly Society and Editor of the Boab<br />
Bulletin. On the next page is her article on<br />
Robert C Scarlett <strong>McPhee</strong>, otherwise known<br />
as Robert C Scarlett Macphee.<br />
Left: Father Anscar (Pat) <strong>McPhee</strong> OSB at the Kimberly<br />
creek named after his grand-uncle<br />
Page 27
Change language