Rev Andrew Murray McGregor

REVEREND ANDREW MURRAY MCGREGOR

Minister of the Gospel in the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa

The Reverend Andrew Murray McGregor is the son of Alexander McGregor and his wife Christian Gunn. He was born on 10 May 1829, and his baptism was registered at Golspie in Sutherland, Scotland. [National Records of Scotland, Golspie Baptisms, reference OPR.51/3]

Death and Burial

Reverend Andrew Murray McGregor died from the effects of heart failure on 17 June 1918, at 12 Hillside Road in Capetown. He was buried at Robertson in South Africa. Death Record

Marriage

Reverend Andrew Murray McGregor married Elizabeth Augusta Robertson. National Archives of South Africa: Notice of Death Notice for Administration of Estates

Children

1. Alexander John McGregor
2. Mina Hepburn Wallace McGregor
3. Elizabeth Henrietta McGregor
4. Andrew Murray McGregor
5. Henrietta Maria McGregor
6. Dr John Robertson McGregor

Genealogical Account

Leaves from my Logbook

THE MCGREGORS

In the town of Golspie, Sutherland, in the far north of Scotland, a merchant called Alexander McGregor, merchant ran an enterprise called “The Emporium”. He had a son, Andrew, born in 1829, who entered the Church of Scotland as a minister of the Free Tolbooth Church in Edinburgh.

Dr Robertson was in Scotland in 1860 looking for more Scottish ministers to serve in the Dutch Reformed Church in the Cape Colony. Andrew McGregor joined the group of ministers Robertson had recruited and arrived in South Africa in 1862. He went to work in the Robertson parish. This parish was in the village called Hoopsrivier, which had been renamed Robertson in 1853, in honour of the great Doctor.

Three months after his arrival in the Cape Andrew McGregor married Elizabeth Augusta (fondly known in the family as “Lily”) and took his new bride to live and work with him in Robertson. They lived there until Rev Andrew retired in 1902, when they moved to Cape Town, to live in the house he named “Rob Roy Villa” in Hillside Road, Tamboerskloof.

While ministering in Robertson Andrew was very actively assisting in a neighbouring parish in the little town of Lady Grey. As a result of his work this parish became a separate congregation in its own right. The village was renamed McGregor in his honour in 1902.

During their time in Robertson Andrew and Lily had ten children, of whom four died in childhood. All of the surviving children were interesting in their own rights.

The first son was Alexander John McGregor, born in 1864. He was an outstanding scholar and rose rapidly in the legal profession after obtaining degrees at the South African College (the forerunner of the University of Cape Town) and Oriel College, Oxford. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple and then returned to South Africa where, in 1889, he was:

Rev Andrew McGregor (Snr) and his wife with (standing Lily, Andrew, Hetty and Mina and sitting to the right of the picture Alexander and, in front of him, John. They are on the sidewalk in front of the pastorie (parsonage) in Robertson. Taken circa 1895. admitted as an advocate of the Supreme Court of the Cape Colony. Thereafter he became Staats Procureur (State Attorney) of the Orange Free State, later becoming a Judge under first the Republic and then the British colony and finally in the Union of South Africa after 1910.

Judge McGregor married Elizabeth, the youngest daughter of the President of the Republic of the Orange Free State, President Jan Brand, in 1891. Their only son William (Willy), a Rhodes Scholar, was killed in action in Flanders during the First World War. Their oldest daughter Sybil married an Inner Temple barrister, Alan Corbett, who for many years was Commissioner for Inland Revenue of the Union. Their son Michael eventually became a judge himself and later the Chief Justice of South Africa.

Andrew and Lily McGregor’s first daughter, born in 1869, was also called Elizabeth and also known as Lily. She married a Beaufort West farmer Mauritz de Villiers and they had five children before Mauritz died at the age of 37. Their first son Frank was a banker in Springfontein. Their second son Maurice studied at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, UK., and came home to South Africa to join the South African Army. During the Second World War he rose to the rank of Brigadier. The three daughters of Lily and Mauritz were Elise, who married John Otway Hayes (their son and grandson made names for themselves as professional golfers); Laetitia, who married Reginald Charles Rand, a Durban businessman; and Pansy, who married Allanby Henderson-Jones, a banker.

The second daughter, also born in 1869, to Andrew and Lily was Mina Hepburn Wallace McGregor, who married the Rev Gerrit du Plessis, a dominee of the Dutch Reformed Church in Calitzdorp and later Army Chaplain in Namibia (then still South West Africa) during the First World War. They had no children.