Alexander Murdoch Mackay

Alexander Murdoch Mackay (13 October 1849 – 4 February 1890) was a Scottish Presbyterian missionary to Uganda also known as Mackay of Uganda. After studying math, drafting and other technical subjects at several universities, Mackay, at age twenty-five, decided to dedicate his life to Christian missionary work, and saw this as a great opportunity to put his technical skills to beneficial use. He was assigned to serve in Uganda by the Church Missionary Society in 1876. While serving as a missionary he performed religious and educational services for the native people of that country; however, his mission was often at risk due to the almost constant tribal wars that surrounded the mission, often instigated by Arab traders and Muslim tribes. During the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition Henry Morton Stanley visited Mackay at the Usambiro mission for a short period where he received aid and local information from him. Mackay worked with David Livingstone and Sir John Kirk to help bring an end to the brutal Arab slave trade in central Africa.

Mackay was born on 13 October 1849 in Rhynie, Aberdeenshire, the son of Rev Alexander Mackay LL.D (1813-1895) and his first wife, Margaret Lillie (1825-1865). Mackay's father was the Free Church minister of his parish. In 1864 he enrolled in the grammar school at Aberdeen. Mackay was sixteen when his mother died the following year. His early education and training at this time was subsequently largely through his father's efforts. The Mackay family lived in a simple house in the countryside, as his father at that time had not taken residence in a Manse. He was himself once an enthusiastic student, who had developed into a man of marked ability. Inclined towards working around machinery rather than playing with his companions, the younger Mackay was his father's constant companion, especially during his walks to the village forge, gas works, carding mill, and other shops. His father, however, had mixed feelings about his son's worldly interests, hoping that he would instead aspire to a more religious vocation. Mackay's father was also a member of the Royal Geographical Society and an author whose works included a manual on geography, published in 1861, and those in other related fields.

The Mackay family moved to Edinburgh in 1867. Here he studied at the Free Church Training School for Teachers at Edinburgh, then at the University of Edinburgh. For three years Mackay was set on pursuing engineering, applied mechanics, mathematics, and natural philosophy at the university, while his father, however, still did all he could to expand his son's knowledge and involvement in Christianity. He was also learned in Greek, Latin, history, music theory, geometry, and mechanical drawing, and freehand drawing, the latter two subjects of which he received an award from the university's Kensington Department. Thereafter he became the Secretary of the Engineering Society, and taught for three hours each morning at George Watson's College. On Sunday morning he attended church services, and in the afternoon taught Sunday School. Mackay would later intimate about the great benefits he received at the Free Church institution, and expressed his great admiration of the rector there, Dr. Maurice Paterson, of whom he later went on to say, " I owe him much—more than much". In later years, while a missionary in Africa, he further expressed his appreciation of his education and acquired skill in a letter:

" I am so far from thinking that my education has been wasted in coming here, that I only wish I had got double the amount of education, not only in the way of book learning, but also in practical skill. This is a field which offers scope for the highest energies. No man can know enough, and be able to turn his hand to too many things, to be a useful missionary in Central Africa."

— — Mackay in a letter to his father, Uganda, 11 October 1882.

On 1 November 1873 Mackay continued his education in Germany, in order to study its language in greater depth, feeling that was the first step to becoming acquainted with the abundance of folklore and the customs of that country. While in school in Berlin, Mackay displayed a great aptitude for mechanics, drafting, and other related technical fields. In little time he secured a good position as a draftsman, in the Berliner Union Actien-Gesellschaft, a designer and fabricator of steam engines in Boamit, a suburb of Berlin. Here he invented a steam driven agricultural machine, which earned him a first prize at the Exhibition of Steam-Machines held at Breslau. Mackay often offered his religious knowledge to his fellow workers and associates. While in Germany Mackay became good friends with one of the ministers of the Berlin Cathedral, whom he regarded as a "genuine Christian and man of wide culture", and was always made welcomed at his home. During this time was introduced to some of the leading Christians of Berlin, including persons of great prominence in the church society, events of which he often recorded in his diary. By 1874 Mackay had dedicated his life to Christian missionary work.

Mackay decided to become a missionary after Henry Morton Stanley was told by King Mutesa I of Buganda that Uganda needed missionaries, and who sent a letter to this effect to The Daily Telegraph in 1875 describing the need and asking for missionaries. At the age of twenty-six, he subsequently joined the Church Missionary Society in 1876, which assigned him to serve in a missionary station in Uganda. Beginning on 27 April 1876, he sailed aboard the S.S. Peshawur from Southampton, England, and arrived on the island of Zanzibar on 30 May, some fifty miles off the east coast of Tanzania. At Mpwapwa they collected the necessary equipment, and made preliminary plans for their eight-hundred-mile trek across Tanzania to the south end of Lake Victoria. On the journey Mackay came down with an acute case of fever and had to return to the coast, carried in a hammock most of the way back to Mpwapwa, while the other members of the party continued on, making their way to the lake, where they put together a vessel, named Daisy, for crossing the lake north to Uganda. After Mackay recovered he organized a labor party and began outfitting a caravan of about seventy loads, and placed it in the charge of an Englishman named Morton. In one-hundred days Mackay built a 230-mile wagon road from Sadani on the coast to Mpwapwa, having to deal with many difficulties through the dense jungle and brush. After everyone had finally regrouped they crossed the lake to Uganda, arriving there in November 1878.

Once settled in they began their missionary work. Along with preaching the gospel, Mackay taught various skills to the Ugandan people, including carpentry and farming. He was named Muzungu wa Kazi by the Ugandans. The name means "white man of work." A great lover of books, Mackay also kept a library in Uganda containing thousands of books, which also served as sort of a night school for some of the visiting parties. In the period following Mackay's arrival in Uganda the relations between King Mutesa and the missionaries were very congenial. The king appeared very anxious to hear more about the Christian religion which had been introduced to him by Stanley. Mackay subsequently had many a long conversation with the king about the Gospel.