The unusual mixture of Andalucian genius and British patience and perseverance can produce something extraordinary, or in this case a family – the MacPhersons of Cadiz.
At the beginning of the 19th Century Cadiz and its people were scarred by the French invasion and the War of Independence. The interference of the English in this war set the tone of the commercial maritime relationships in the Atlantic which in turn affected the companies already established in the Spanish ports such as Cadiz.
Many of the Cadiz traders were of English, Irish and Scottish ancestry and were an educated mixture, with progressive liberal tendencies. They would meet up together in secret societies and Masonic lodges, forming part of the most significant forces within the bourgeois revolution. Cadiz, therefore was culturally very advanced and without a doubt was the birthplace of Spanish liberalism.
Amongst the wealthiest traders established in Cadiz was the Aguirre family, a Basque family related to the Oruetas from Onate. These events were the historical beginning of a friendship which developed years later between Domingo Orueta y Aguirre (junior) and Jose Macpherson, and which undoubtedly influenced the geological vocation of the latter.
The Macphersons established themselves in Cadiz in 1820, led by the Scottish immigrant Daniel Macpherson, previously known as Donald MacPherson Grant, and born in Inverness, Scotland. He moved to Cadiz to take pursue his import and export business in what, at the time, was one of the biggest ports in Spain. Daniel had changed his name due to religious reasons due to his Catholic marriage with Josepha Hemas Marti, daughter of a Valencian trader and a woman from Cadiz.
With its liberal ideology, the family took part in the Riego rebellion and as a result had to flee to Gibraltar to hide from the bullying of the autocratic Fernando VII after the invasion of the Hundred Thousand Sons of San Luis. Daniel Macpherson’s children therefore began their education in Gibraltar where some of them were born and they returned permanently to Cadiz in 1835.
Donald’s children distanced themselves from the influences of the pleasures of a life a leisure which their family fortune afforded them. They concentrated all their energies to intellectual and science-related pursuits which each sibling enjoyed and was keen to develop yet further.
Jose Macpherson never studied a university degree which “contributed greatly to the strengthening of the native independence of his spirit” (Calderon, 1902). Aided by his economically-fortunate family, he built up a career as he pleased. Jose Macpherson dedicated his early studies to mathematics, physics and chemistry, vigorously pursuing the latter subject in Paris where he threw himself into the study of mineralogy, spending considerable time with Pisani, Daubree and Stanislas-Meunier. He concentrated his attention to the study of the geological transformations of the earth. He made detailed visits to all the mountains and glaciers of Switzerland and carried out microscopic studies on the rocks, personally carrying out and investigating many studies and publishing the results in such extraordinary times. With regard to his studies of stones, he studied the rocks of Seville (1879), Cadiz (1876), Galicia (1881) and the mountainous region around Ronda (1879). He investigated the relationships between different types of rocks. In the field of stratigraphy he produced new data and his study entitled “Molecular movements in rock solids” (1890) was well respected. His leaning towards geology in this last study was influenced by Domingo Orueta y Aguirre (junior). The Aguirre family was one of the wealthiest established traders in Cadiz in the 19th Century, of Basque origin and related to the Orueta family from Onate.
Guillermo Macpherson together with Adolfo de Castro created the Academia de Buenas Letras de Adolfo el Sabio in Cadiz in 1854 and also worked simultaneously as a civil servant in the British Consulate in Cadiz and Seville between 1865 and 1877. In 1878 he was named as Vice-Consul in Madrid and then Consul in 1885. His earlier interests focused on geology and pre-history and he published various studies. Between 1873 and 1897 he translated 23 Shakespeare plays with a translation style that was both concise and effective. According to Alfonso Parr, if they had collaborated on their works, they could have produced the greatest literary criticism of Shakespeare of their time. The first was Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Cadiz, 1873). Between 1879 and 1882 in Madrid seven more were published, amongst them a review of his Hamlet in 1879 and a third in 1882, two editions of Romeo and Juliet (1880 and 1882), Macbeth (1880), Othelo (1881) and Richard III (1882).
In 1864, the son of Daniel, also called Daniel MacPherson y Hembras was chosen as the Lloyds agent for the province of Cadiz, an illustrious title which his descendants still proudly hold today, representing Lloyds of London in the ports and bays of Cadiz and Algeciras.
From the first of the Macpherson clan to the last, this family has never lost contact with its roots in Scotland. “Twelve years ago we came here to a town called Newtonmore, near Loch Ness to take part in a gathering of all the Macphersons”, says Maria Jose Macpherson Grosso. Fully kitted out in kilts of the colours of all the lineages, they rediscovered their ancestral links.
Written by Jesús Castro.
Translated by Rachael Harrison.
Sponsored by www.costaluzlawyers.es
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