From The Pews Of The Church In Kilinian To Pioneers In Colonial Australia. The Patterson Clan.

A Memory of Kilninian.

The Church at Kilinian during the 18th and 19th century, if not earlier, was a Celtic Presbyterian Church where my ancestors, the Patterson and McClean families worshipped, conducted baptisms, weddings and funerals. The residents I have traced go back to John Patterson, father to Donald who was father to Neil who was father to Angus who was father to Malcolm Patterson who left the island in1837 with his wife Mary and son Angus Hector to become free settlers in the Bathurst area of NSW, Australia. During their sea voyage Princess Victoria became Queen. Across the water from Kilinian was the Isle of Ulva where Governor Lachlan MacQuarie was born and raised, eventually becoming NSW's most influential Governor until 1821. On his brief return to Ulva it is likely that word spread around Mull of the great opportunities opening up in the Great South Land.

The Church at Kilinian saw the baptism and marriage of my great x 2 grandfather, Malcom Patterson. He was a shepherd in the Kilinian region but rental rates and food famine forced he and Mary to leave and never return. When I do visit the island and Kilinian this summer, 2022 it will have been a186 years since the Patterson clan have returned to Mull. Angus Hector, son of Malcolm is my great grandfather.

Both Angus Hector and his son, Hurtle Austin Patterson (my grandfather) were pioneers in the Australian labor movement, creating history with their shearers' strike in the late 1800s that led to a foundational moment in Australian history, a labour meeting on 5th January, 1891, under a tree (now known as the Tree of Knowledge) in the Queensland town of Barcaldine which was then the Patterson's home town. It is today considered the birth place of the Australian Labour Party and workers unions. My grandfather would later fight in the Boer War as well as on the beaches of Gallipoli, being one of an initial small landing party in two boats that were the first to reach the beach on that fateful morning of April 25th, 1915. Hurtle would survive wounds that ended up seeing him return to Australia.

His first hand experince from day one at Gallipoli, plus his civic pride and oratory skills saw him appointed by the Army as the final speaker at the recruitment rallies that took place along the railway line from Brisbane to Long Reach. He would ten years later be elected to stand as a Labor candidate for parliament in the State seat of Enoggera, Brisbane, home to Australia's largest Army base. Hurtle Austin Patterson also worked alongside his colleague who he traveled with on the recruitment train to pioneer the now institutional annual service and public holiday to commemorate the fallen of WW1. The first ANZAC DAY ceremony in 1916 was organised in my grandparents town of Mt Morgan while another took place in Brisbane. My grandparents never forgot their celtic heritage and wherever they moved to they formed a Burns Poetry Club. There is a rich record in Australian newspaper archives centred around Hurtle Austin Patterson. Today my sister Sue, cousin Victor and I are the sole surviving grandchildren of Hurtle Austin Patterson, Grandson of Malcom and Mary Patterson originally born, baptised and married in the Church at Kilinian on the Isle of Mull.

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