author
Marshall MacDermott
d. 1877
A restless 19th-century adventurer tells his own story here, moving from army service in the Napoleonic era to public life in colonial Australia. His memoir has the pull of a life lived across continents and careers.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Marshall MacDermott was a British Army officer, public servant, and memoirist who lived from about 1791 to November 3, 1877. He spent many years in the army and later settled in Australia, where he became active in business and politics in South Australia.
He is best known as the author of A Brief Sketch of the Long and Varied Career of Marshall MacDermott, Esq., J.P. of Adelaide, South Australia. The book is a firsthand account of a long, unusually varied life, tracing his military service and his later work in colonial society. That gives his writing a direct, personal quality that can appeal to listeners interested in memoir, history, and the early colonial world.
Records about him emphasize how prominent he was in South Australia in his later years, including service in the Legislative Council and House of Assembly. Because surviving online sources focus more on his public career than on his literary life, the memoir remains the clearest window into his voice and experiences.