Dr Charles Mackay was a Scot who published his first volume of poetry in 1834. He spent considerable time travelling abroad including a period in the USA where he was the New York correspondent for the London Times during the American Civil War.
Although it appears that Mackay did not visit Australia, his poetry was well known in the colonies and often published in the Australian Town and Country Journal and the Victorian School Paper. (It also appeared occasionally in the Atlas, the Geelong Advertiser and Squatters' Advocate and the Sydney Monitor and Commercial Advertiser.) A substantial review of Mackay's Under Green Leaves was published in My Note Book on 11 April 1857 and a review of Ballads and Lyrical Poems appeared on 20 June 1857.
In 1889 a public fund was established to support the poet in his impoverished old age. The Governors of both Victoria and New South Wales subscribed to the fund.
Mackay's two poems dealing with Australia are indexed in AustLit.
Source: The Town and Country Journal 39.1002 (23 March 1889): 29.
