Mackinnon Parade, North Adelaide, was named after William Alexander Mackinnon MP, the Tory member for Dunwich (1830) and later a liberal/conservative member for Lymington (1831, 1835) and Rye (1853) in the British House of Commons.
Early in his parliamentary career he had an interest in colonisation and free trade, which led him to the Edward Gibbon Wakefield cause of systematic colonisation and membership within the newly formed National Colonization Society, in around 1830. In this, Mackinnon saw investment opportunity in the proposed South Australian Land Company 1831.
With the passage of the Reform Bill in 1832, a totally reconstituted British parliament launched into a frenzy of reform and change. Innovative ideas like the Wakefield plan were infused with new life. Among the more liberal (radical) members on the newly elected government benches, many ideas – some good, some bad – were proposed. Colonisation, social reconstruction, the amelioration of poverty, currency adjustments and trade equalisation were all given voice.
Against this background, and in the short term, Mackinnon suffered for his then Tory position on the Reform Bill. Unfortunately, his speech against the Bill at the third reading was most untimely, as the clamour for change had now become inevitable. To make matters worse, the speech was printed for public distribution. This was most inopportune and he lost his seat. Nevertheless, by 1835 he was again returned at the polls, this time for Lymington, a seat he held continuously until 1852. His political position by then had shifted, not surprisingly, to what we might describe today as small ‘l’ liberal, and he became more involved with social and philanthropic issues.
Mackinnon’s activities during the next few years were many and varied. He assumed the presidency for the Society Against Cruelty and in 1842, on another tangent entirely, became Chairman of the United Kingdom Insurance Office. In the parliament he took up many causes, but his most significant contribution was to lobby for better management of cemeteries and a more sanitary interment process. His reputation in the House on these matters was considerable and his patronage and influence came under wider notice. Along with the Duke of Manchester, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Samuel Gurney and others, Mackinnon was elected Vice President of the highly regarded Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes. Queen Victoria later became the patron and the Prince Consort, the President.
On colonisation Mackinnon’s views were benevolent. He saw it as a way of unburdening the pressures on the poor in Britain. His public expression of these ideas and an evolving, more libertine outlook apparently found favour with Colonel Robert Torrens and Robert Gouger who, with the passage of the South Australia Act 1834 were now charged with its implementation.
On 8 April 1835 the Whig/radical amalgam of the Reform Parliament was again returned to power. Unsurprisingly, on 5 May 1835 William Alexander Mackinnon was gazetted as a South Australian Colonial Commissioner under the patronage of Lord Glenelg. Happy to accept office without payment and clearly a person of influence at the highest levels of public office, his appointment was lauded. Torrens was so impressed at this point that he even went as far as to suggest Mackinnon as a candidate for the position of governor in the proposed colony.
For the most part Mackinnon and Torrens enjoyed an amicable relationship in the parliament and elsewhere, but not long after the first Commission ships had sailed for South Australia a dispute arose between them over the question of salaries. Torrens had applied to the Colonial Office requesting a salary for himself of £600 and for his Secretary, Rowland Hill, £300. This was thought to be in bad taste by some of the other commissioners, in particular by William Hutt and Mackinnon who argued it was against the spirit of the project. Taking higher moral ground they claimed it was their honour to give ‘disinterested gratuitous service’ to the Commission. Mackinnon thought Torrens too self-interested and said so in the House. With a taint of impropriety which then hung in the air, the two engaged in some acrimonious and vituperative correspondence, and there was some posturing towards a duel. Fortunately the disagreement eventually dissipated.
William Alexander Mackinnon was the very wealthy leader of the Clan Mackinnon in 1808 becoming the 33rd Chief of the Clan in the Western Isles of Scotland. He was the eldest son of William and Francis Mackinnon (nee Frye, formerly of Antigua) and was born at Dauphine in France on 2 August 1789.
Mackinnon was also Chief Magistrate and Deputy Lieutenant for the counties of Middlesex, Hampshire and Essex. In 1812, at age 23, he married Emma, the daughter of Joseph Palmer Esq of Rush House, County Dublin in Ireland. Emma was a rich heiress of exceptional beauty who bore Mackinnon three sons and three daughters.
As the beneficiary of a classical education at St John’s College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1804 and a Master of Arts in 1807, Mackinnon’s talent for the written word soon found expression in a variety of publications, among them The gentleman’s magazine.
He joined the Carlton Club; was elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (1820); and admitted as a Fellow of The Royal Society on 14 June 1827. Throughout this period he continued to reflect on what he termed ‘public opinion’ and how it might bear upon the public behaviour and any likely government response. This set of ideas, stemming as it did from Jean Jacques Rousseau’s concept of l’opinion publique, evolved into a substantial book and became his most outstanding legacy. Today it remains a seminal work and is usually cited in association with the works of George Gallup and other psephological enterprises, especially in a number of contemporary university schools of public policy. Entitled On the rise, progress and present state of public opinion in Great Britain and other parts of the world, it was published in 1828. The essential thesis seems to be that in societies where the masses have the wherewithal to lift themselves from poverty and brutishness to form what might be called a middle class, the accompanying civilising process will provide the basis for a body of public opinion to evolve, regardless of the issue. Such an evolution and aggregation of opinion, he said, usually works for the common good.
At this time Mackinnon was referring to ideas spread by word or in books, newspapers and pamphlets. The village tavern, the factory, the local parish and bustling cities were obvious places where opinion could gather momentum, and wherever large numbers gathered in the name of religion, work or politics the possibility of a groundswell remained a distinct possibility.
Just how well this book was received by the public is hard to determine. It certainly didn’t become an all-time classic, although given the power of the media to influence public opinion today, perhaps it was ahead of its time. Mackinnon’s book did capture the attention of some of the most prominent literary men of the day, including Edward Bulwer-Lytton, the distinguished historical novelist, Benthamite parliamentarian and a feature writer for the Edinburgh review. Bulwer-Lytton offered to review the book but later withdrew, declaring that the subject matter was probably too vague.
Mackinnon can be described as a man of letters with a penchant for the classics and a taste for liberal discourse among his literary contemporaries. He was at various times elected a Fellow of the royal geographical, geological, astronomical and Asian societies, and in a long parliamentary career showed interest in a diverse, if not disparate set of issues. The Patent Laws, East India Company salaries, Turnpike Trusts and Rural Constabularies all attracted his attention. During a career spanning forty years he served on a parade of House of Commons Select Committees and became chairman of several. He chaired enquiries into the Bill for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (1831–32), Patent Security for Fourdrinier’s mechanical paper making machine (1837), the effect of Railroads on Turnpike Trusts (1839) and much later a committee to enquire into the means of settling disputes between Masters and Operatives (1860).
After some early literary work for The gentleman’s magazine,Mackinnon began to canvas more theoretical issues. His association with Torrens and James Pennington, who were both members of the exclusive Political Economy Club, may have led to his Thoughts on the currency question, which he published anonymously before 1828. With the benefit of parliamentary experience and the rewards of international travel, including a trip to America, he rewrote and embellished much of what he published in his greatest work on public opinion in a two-volume set entitled The history of civilisation in 1846.
When in London he resided at Hyde Park Place, but privately he had many estates. He repurchased lands which had traditionally belonged to the Clan Mackinnon in Scotland and held other estates at Newtown Park, Hampshire; Asgill House, which had been built on the site of Henry VII’s Royal Palace in Richmond, Surrey; Acrise Park in Kent; and another in County Mayo on the west coast of Ireland.
He died on 30 April 1870, leaving an estate of £100,000 and was buried at Acrise Park.
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