Clan MacAulay

Clan Origin & Name

MacAulay is a Highland clan name found in two distinct territories — the Outer Hebrides (Lewis) and Dunbartonshire — whose diaspora produced one of the greatest historians of the Victorian age.

History

The MacAulay name — Mac Amhlaigh in Gaelic, meaning son of Amhlaidh (the Norse name Olaf) — appears in two distinct Scottish families who share the same anglicised name. The MacAulays of Lewis were a powerful sept of Clan MacLeod in the Outer Hebrides, controlling the western districts of Lewis. The MacAulays of Ardincaple in Dunbartonshire were a separate Lowland family of different origin who adopted or were given the same name.

The Lewis MacAulays lived in a Norse-influenced Gaelic world where the name Amhlaidh (Olaf) was common — reflecting the centuries of Norse settlement in the Hebrides that gave the islands much of their character. The clan's territory in western Lewis included the area of Uig, one of the most remote and beautiful landscapes in the Hebrides, and a centre of weaving and fishing traditions that persist to the present day.

The MacAulays of Ardincaple held their lands at the mouth of the River Gare in Dunbartonshire, commanding the southern shore of the Gareloch. They appear in Scottish records from the fourteenth century and were a significant Dunbartonshire family through the medieval and early modern periods, before the male line eventually failed in the eighteenth century.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859), is the most famous bearer of the MacAulay name in world terms. His family traced to Lewis origins, though by his time they had been long settled in England. Macaulay's History of England, which sold in extraordinary numbers for a work of serious history, and his Lays of Ancient Rome were among the most widely read English works of the nineteenth century. His famous "Macaulay's Minute on Indian Education" (1835), arguing for English-medium education in India, shaped the subcontinent's educational system for generations. His prose style set the standard for English historical writing.

MacAulay in the diaspora

Lewis MacAulays emigrated primarily to Canada — Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island — in the nineteenth century, following the routes of the Lewis and Harris diaspora that created the Scottish Gaelic communities of the Maritimes. The name appears throughout these communities. In New Zealand and Australia, MacAulay families from both Dunbartonshire and Lewis can be traced.

Notable MacAulay Families

• Thomas Babington Macaulay — Victorian historian and author, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859)
• Zachary Macaulay — Abolitionist and evangelical social reformer, father of Thomas
• Rob MacAulay — Lewis community leader and Harris Tweed advocate