Donald Macdonell

Who was Donald Macdonell?

Donald Macdonell was an Australian politician.

Born at Stuart Mill near St Arnaud, Victoria, to Scottish-born farmer and shearer Alexander Macdonell, he helped on his father's farm as a child and moved to New South Wales in 1886, being an early member of the Australasian Shearers' Union. He played a leading party in the 1891 strike, during which time he was in Queensland, and he helped to draft the rule for the Australian Workers' Union in 1894, in which year he became secretary of the Shearers' Union's Bourke branch and a member of the Australian Labor Party. He was general secretary of the AWU from 1900 to 1911. In 1901 he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as the Labor member for Cobar, serving until 1911; he was Minister for Agriculture and Colonial Secretary from 1910 to 1911. Macdonell died in Melbourne in 1911.