John Rae, public servant, author and painter, was the son of George Rae, an Aberdeen banker, and his wife, Jane nee Edmond. He was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and Marischal College, University of Aberdeen where he secured an M.A. in 1832. Articled to a firm of solicitors, he continued his legal studies and pursued his literary interests in Edinburgh. Migrating to Australia in 1839 he was appointed secretary and accountant to the North British Australasian Loan and Investment Company. By 1843 the company had almost collapsed and Rae became the first fulltime town clerk of Sydney on 27 July 1843. He had to overcome years of civic neglect and at an 1854 inquiry was regarded as the only constructive witness on public health administration. In 1853 he was appointed one of three city commissioners but lost the position in 1857. He then became secretary to the railway commissioner and eventually, in 1861, under-secretary for public works and commissioner for railways. In 1880 Rae also became chairman of the tender board for public works and in 1889 a member of the Civil Service Board until his retirement in 1893. John Rae had a distinguished career as a public servant in Sydney during the nineteenth century.

Rae wrote poetry and painted for his own pleasure. In 1841 he had lectured on 'Taste', 'The English Language' and Robert Burns at the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts of which he was a committee member. In 1842 he wrote the letterpress for J. S. Prout's Sydney Illustrated, published separately in 1844. Rae taught himself to print and bound his Gleanings From My Scrap Books in two separate series published in 1869 and 1874. His last literary effort was the editing and publication of Thirty-Five Years on the New South Wales Railways (1898), a biography of John Whitton. Rae was also an amateur artist of some distinction. He painted water-colours of Sydney and large panoramas of Wollongong, Newcastle and the Murray valley. His colonial sketches were sent to the Calcutta Exhibition in 1883 and to the Centennial International Exhibition, Melbourne, in 1888. Rae was also a keen amateur photographer from the 1850s and was one of the judges at the 1870 Sydney Intercolonial Exhibition.

Rae married Elizabeth Thompson on 17 December 1845 and they had four sons and two daughters.

(Source: Adapted from Nan Phillips, 'Rae, John (1813 - 1900)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 6, MUP, 1976, pp 1-2; David Rae A Colonial Life : John Rae (2006) and 'Rae, John (1813-1900)', The Dictionary of Australian Artists : painters, sketchers, photographers and engravers to 1870 ed. Joan Kerr (1992): 652-653)