Sir Malcolm Donald McEacharn (8 February 1852 – 10 March 1910) was Mayor of Melbourne from 1897 to 1900. He was a well-known Australian shipping magnate in the early part of the twentieth century and successfully stood for the Division of Melbourne at the inaugural federal election, held in 1901. Early life McEacharn was born in London on 8 February 1852 to a master mariner Malcolm and his wife Ann, née Gay, both from the Isle of Islay, Scotland. His father died in a shipwreck two years later, and, as the son of a dead sailor, the Royal Caledonian School in Islington cared for and educated him for seven years when he was of school age. In 1866, at age 14, he joined a London shipping office named Rucker, Offor & Co. He began his own shipbroking business in 1873 at age 21. Two years later he partnered with Andrew McIlwraith, to found McIlwraith, McEacharn & Co. in London. He married his first wife Ann Peirson, from a landowning family near Pickering, in Goathland, North Yorkshire on 10 January 1878. St Mary's church, Goathland has several plaques dedicated to the memory of their families. Shipping career McIlwraith, McEacharn & Co. became a very successful company, earning profitable contracts to carry cargo and immigrants to Queensland, Australia. McEacharn and McIlwraith soon began to build up a mercantile import and export business with Australia. McIlwraith's brothers lived in Australia: Thomas in Brisbane and John in Melbourne. John acted as the firm's Melbourne agent for the first three years. Move to Australia After the death of his first wife, Ann, after only eleven months of marriage, he travelled to Queensland to launch the Australian trade in refrigerated meat. McEacharn personally selected meat and butter, which his chartered ship, the Strathleven, accompanied by McEacharn, transported from Sydney to London. While his partner chose to remain in Britain, McEacharn settled in Australia. He bought a Rockhampton shipping business, Walter Reid & Co., in 1881. On 4 July 1882 he married Mary Ann Watson, a daughter of mining millionaire John Boyd Watson. at Sandhurst (Bendigo) in Victoria. Their daughter, Annie Madalaine McEacharn, died young, aged 7 years, possibly in Australia, but she is commemorated on a monumental inscription in St Mary's Church Goathland, Yorkshire, England dated 1992. Their son Captain Neil Boyd W McEacharn (born Hanover Square, London, England 1884) established the famous Giardini Botanici Villa