James Whiteside McCay

James McCay

Sir James Whiteside McCay , KCMG , KBE , CB , VD (born December 21, 1864 in Ballynure , County Antrim , † October 1, 1930 in Melbourne ) was an Australian lawyer, politician and lieutenant general .

Life

Origin and youth

James McCay was born the eldest of ten children of Presbyter Reverend Andrew Ross Boyd McCay (1837-1915) and his wife Lily Ann Esther Brown in County Antrim, Northern Ireland . In 1865 the family (James had five brothers and two sisters) emigrated to Victoria because the father was to take over the Presbyterian Church in Castlemaine. At the age of twelve (1875) McCay entered Ormond College, from 1881 he attended the University of Melbourne . He won a £ 200 scholarship and began studying at Scotch College, Melbourne. He learned French, Italian and Spanish and left university in 1883 to start teaching at Tooraker Grammar School. His father had bought the high school in Castlemaine in 1885 and made himself his own headmaster, girls should have the same opportunities there as boys. McCay made up his school leaving examination in 1888 and pursued the academic course further, he studied mathematics at the University of Melbourne until 1892 and graduated in 1895 with honors from his law degree. In 1896 he was admitted to the Victoria Supreme Court and established his own legal practice in Castlemaine. His practice had the first phone in town. He received his Master of Laws in 1897 and started a successful legal practice, McCay & Thwaites, with his brother-in-law, William Thwaites.

On April 8, 1896, he married Julia Mary O'Meara (1896-1915), daughter of the Catholic Police Magistrate of Kyneton. The marriage resulted in two daughters: Margaret Mary ("Mardi") born in 1897, was a nun and Beatrix Waring ("Bixie") was born in 1901, later married George Reid, Attorney General of Victoria from 1967 to 1973.

Political career

In August 1890, McCay was elected to the Castlemaine parish council and advocated women's suffrage. When the Conservative Prime Minister of Victoria, James Patterson , died of influenza in October 1895 , a new liberal cabinet was formed under Prime Minister George Turner . McCay was President of the Castlemaine Parliament from 1895 to 1899. But he was pushed back to second seat in new elections in 1899 by the young soccer hero Harry Lawson. According to the existing Act of Federation, McCay had the opportunity to enter the new parliament in Victoria and agreed to support the liberal government of George Turner. After Turner's defeat by Allan McLean on December 5, 1899, McCay briefly chaired his group. McCay was from March 29, 1901 federal electorate for the Castlemaine department and worked as a member of Parliament in Corinella. In 1904 he preferred the amendment of the settlement and arbitration act, he wanted to remove the mediation clause provided by the Commonwealth Court and leave the arbitration proceedings to the unions. The controversial debate led to the fall of the Liberal cabinet of Chris Watson in the fall of 1904. George Reid became the new Prime Minister of Victoria on August 18, 1904, and brought McCay to his cabinet as Secretary of Defense . His predecessor, Senator Anderson Dawson, had formed a committee that pushed through the creation of a military council to chair the defense. At the first meeting of the Defense Council, McCay rejected Captain William Rooke Creswell's argument that the bulk of the defense budget should be spent in support of the British fleet. His changes to the previous Defense Act at the end of 1904, which were made without consulting the Westminster government, led to his recall on July 5, 1905. In 1906 the electorate had destroyed the majority of his parliamentary group in Corinella, McCay ran unsuccessfully for a seat in Corio . His attempt to get into the Senate failed again and in 1910 withdrew from politics disappointed.

Military career

On October 29, 1886, McCay volunteered at the 4th Victoria Rifle Battalion, became captain in 1889 and rose to captain in 1896 . In 1900 he was appointed lieutenant colonel and assigned to the newly created Intelligence Corps. As acting minister, he had supported Lieutenant Colonel William T. Bridges' request for additional staff in the intelligence department . On his recommendation, McCay was appointed chief of the Intelligence Corps on December 6, 1907 and promoted to colonel . He was represented on the board until 1912, and on March 31, 1913, a long trip took him to Europe . At the beginning of the First World War , Colonel McCay was placed at the head of the Victorian Infantry Brigade in August 1914 and assigned to the Expeditionary Corps in support of Great Britain. On August 15, 1914, he was assigned to mobilize his 2nd Infantry Brigade. The first contingent reached the training camp in Egypt in early December 1915. In the spring of 1915, he led the Australian 2nd Infantry Brigade on the landing on Gallipoli . On April 26, 1915, his brigade landed at Cape Helles under the command of General William Birdwood and General Bridges . The 2nd Brigade was to advance north after the landing of the 3rd Brigade under Colonel Sinclair-Maclagan , to its left, but the wrong landing site led to complete confusion. McCay's brigade was pinned to the coast by the Turkish defensive fire and lost half of its nominal strength in the first two days; she had to be replaced on April 29th and 30th. On May 3, 1915, General Sir Ian Hamilton called for reinforcements, and Colonel McCay's leg was shot and broken. He returned to Egypt at short notice, but returned to the Anzac bridgehead on June 8th with his leg not healed sufficiently. He was saddened by the quicker promotion of the little younger officer Legge to major general and superior. Lieutenant General Birdwood put him in charge of the new Australian 2nd Division, but on July 11th the wound on his leg began to break open. While hospitalized in Malta , he endured several operations, he lost enormous weight and returned to Victoria as an invalid. Meanwhile, his wife Julia died on July 13th and his father on September 1st. When he landed in Melbourne on November 11th, he was welcomed by the population as a war hero. On November 29, he was appointed major general and temporarily appointed inspector general of the Australian Imperial Force . In December 1915 he suppressed a minor troop uprising in New South Wales . General Birdwood recommended that the Australian government put McCay in command of the newly formed 3rd Division at home. But the government insisted that McCay be given active command in Egypt. McCay finally took over command of the newly established 5th Division on March 22, 1916 , which, formed in Egypt, went to the Western Front . In the association of the British IX. Corps under Lieutenant General Haking , McCay's division took part in the Battle of Fromelles in July 1916 . The unnecessarily heavy losses in the difficult offensive operation exposed McCay's poor leadership. The division was paralyzed for weeks, only in September and October 1916 was the operation successfully operated on during the attack on Fleurbaix. In the autumn he transferred the 5th Division to the Somme to take part in the attack near Flers . At the beginning of January 1917 McCay was replaced by General Talbot Hobbs and relieved of his command, his unpopularity with the leadership and his unsatisfactory relationship with his subordinates were probably decisive for this. Contrary to General Birdwood's advice, he was appointed commander of the Australian base camp in England on May 1st. Brigadier General Thomas Griffiths found the cooperation with McCay so obstructive that he asked for permission to return to the Western Front. McCay remained on the island as a senior officer in charge of the military police until May 1918. For almost two years he controlled the Australian field camp in Salisbury until it was demobilized. His superiors' judgments about his leadership at Krithia and Fromelles seem unfair, but they ruined his military career. In 1918 he received the honorary orders of St. Michael and St. George and in 1919 became commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE).

After the war

McCay left the armed forces in August 1919 and returned to his homeland. He gave up his legal practice and became a business advisor to the Commonwealth government. Until 1922 he remained chairman of the Royal Victorian Commission established in 1919. Since 1912 he was commissioner of the State Savings Bank of Victoria, now he was elected vice-chairman. During the police strike from 1923 to 1924 he acted for several months as commander of the Special Constabulary Force of Victoria. He also wrote articles and essays for newspapers on political and economic topics, sometimes under a pseudonym, and for a long time acted as trustee of the Presbyterian Church of Castlemaine. Appointed lieutenant general on an honorary basis by the government , he retired in 1926. His last years were difficult, with constant pain from his never-healed wound. McCay fell ill with cancer and died on October 1, 1930 of additional hypertensive kidney disease in Melbourne. He was buried in Box Hill Cemetery.

literature

• Geoffrey Serle: " McCay, Sir James Whiteside (1864-1930 )". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Australian National University, Canberra 1986
• Christopher Wray: Sir James Whiteside McCay - A Turbulent Life , Oxford University Press, 2002

Web links

• Entry on Australian biography
• Datasheet as a member of parliament