New light shone on ‘the first Chinese-scot’
● Story of man who eventually became Kirk elder told for first time
He is a largely forgotten figure from the nation’s history books – despite being the first recorded Chinese citizen to start a new life in Scotland.
Now the story of the man who arrived as a servant to a retired surgeon, became a Church of Scotland elder and a leading accountant in Edinburgh and took centre-stage in a landmark citizenship case will be told for the first time.
For nearly two years, after an initial ruling, William Macao had the distinction of being the only person to be legally deemed to be a Scotsman since the 1707 Act of Union – before it was overturned.
Nearly two centuries on from his death, Macao will finally be celebrated today at his final resting-place in what became his home city of Edinburgh.
Historian Barclay Price, who has spent almost a year piecing together fragments of Macao’s time in Scotland for a new book, will chart the half-century he spent in the country, during which time he became a senior accountant in Scotland’s Excise Office.
The Edinburgh World Heritage trust is staging the special celebration of Macao, who is described as “the world’s first Chinese Scotsman”, at St Cuthbert’s Church, at the corner of Princes Street and Lothian Road, where he is buried in the kirkyard. The lecture is part of the biggest ever programme of Chinese New Year events to be held in the city, which will see prominent buildings and landmarks lit up red today.
Macao is believed to have accompanied surgeon David Urquhart, who worked in China with the powerful East India Company, to Scotland in 1775 to work at his Braelangwell
0 Historian Barclay Price, who has researched the history of the first Chinese Scotsman, William Macao, beside his grave in Edinburgh estate in Cromarty, on the Black Isle, where he was baptised into the local church.
Macao moved to Edinburgh in 1777 to work as a footman to neighbouring estate owner Thomas Lockhart, commissioner of the Board of Excise. By 1800 he was an accountant at its St Andrew Square headquarters and when he retired in 1826 he was in charge of its superannuation fund.
Macao became embroiled in a lengthy legal wrangle in 1819 when he became a test case over a legal loophole suggesting anyone buying stock in the Bank of Scotland could become a “naturalised Scot”– in defiance of the Act of Union.
Mr Price said: “I started looking into the life of William Macao when I found a mention in a book about old Edinburgh of an account that was written in 1858 about a Chi- nese man who had working at the Board of Excise 50 years before then.
“It is remarkable how invisible he has been in Edinburgh’s history. He’s not mentioned in any accounts of the early Chinese to settle in Britain.”
Edinburgh World Heritage director Adam Wilkinson said: “We’re Edinburgh’s often hidden multiculturalism by focusing on an important but relatively unknown figure in its history. William Macao’s story is fascinating not just for the Chinese community, who have been part of Edinburgh for generations, but for all of us who are interested in learning more about its rich cultural heritage.”