Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/537

 London and discuss the matter with the war office authorities. The latter directed a court of inquiry to be held in Ceylon. Macdonald left London on his way thither on 24 March, and shot himself next day at the Hôtel Regina in Paris. He was buried in the Dean cemetery, Edinburgh. In 1884 he married Christina McDonald, daughter of Alexander MacLouchlan Duncan of Leith; she died at Edinburgh on 11 March 1911, leaving one son.

Macdonald holds an exceptional place in the history of the British army as a private who rose wholly by virtue of his soldierly capacity and physical courage to all but the highest military rank. As a dauntless fighter and a resourceful leader of men in battle he acquired well-merited fame. A rough tongue always showed traces of his origin. Among the Highlanders his memory was idolised. A memorial in the form of a tower 100 feet high was completed at Dingwall, overlooking his birthplace, on 23 May 1907.

 McDONALD, JOHN BLAKE (1829–1901), Scottish artist, son of James McDonald, wood merchant, was born at Boharm, Morayshire, on 24 May 1829. He was educated there, but, going to Edinburgh with a taste for art, he entered the academy of the Board of Trustees in Edinburgh in 1853. He proved a good student both then and later in the life school of the Royal Scottish Academy, where in 1862 he won the first prize for painting from the life. But retaining much of the chiaroscuro of the earlier school, and being, in spite of a certain dexterity and force of execution, heavy in handling and dull in colour, his pictures lacked the charm and fine quality which mark those of Lauder's best pupils. They were effective, however, and popular, for most of the more important dealt with dramatic or picturesque episodes in highland history or Jacobite romance, and in 1862 he was elected an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy and academician in 1877. In 1874 he was in Venice, where he painted a number of pictures, and after 1878 he practically abandoned figure for landscape, in which he did some vigorous work of the transcript kind in both oil and water-colour. One of his best pictures, 'Prince Charlie leaving Scotland,' is in the Albert Institute, Dundee, and his diploma work, 'Glencoe, 1692,' is also a characteristic example. Dying in Edinburgh on 20 Dec. 1901, he was survived by his second wife and a grown-up family.

 MACDONALD, JOHN DENIS (1826–1908), inspector-general of hospitals and fleets, born at Cork on 26 Oct. 1826, was youngest son of James Macdonald, artist, by his wife Catherine, daughter of Denis McCarthy of Kilcoleman, co. Cork. His father was the representative of the Castleton branch of the Macdonald family, and claimant of the Annandale peerage through his great-grandfather, the Hon. John Johnston of Stapleton. He was privately educated, and after attending the Cork school of medicine went to King's College medical school to finish his course. Having qualified, he entered the navy as assistant surgeon in 1849 and was appointed to the Royal Hospital, Plymouth. In 1852 he was appointed to the Herald, and continued in her on surveying service in the South Pacific until 1859. In the same year he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society for his unremitting microscopic studies with the aid of the sounding-lead, dredge, and towing-net, and was promoted to surgeon. In 1862 he was awarded the Makdougall-Brisbane medal by the Royal Society of Edinburgh for his deep-sea investigations. In 1864 he was appointed to Haslar Hospital, and in June 1870 as staff surgeon to the Lord Warden, flagship in the Mediterranean. In 1871 he was awarded the Gilbert Blane medal. In March 1872 he was appointed to the flagship at Portsmouth for service as professor of naval hygiene at Netley; this post he continued to hold after his promotion to deputy inspector-general in Feb. 1875. In July 1880 he was promoted inspector-general, and in that rank was in charge of the Royal Naval Hospital at Plymouth from 1883 to 1886. He retired on 24 May 1886. He was made K.C.B. in 1902. His chief publications were 'The Analogy of Sound and Colour' (1869); 'Outlines of Naval Hygiene' (1881); and a 'Guide to the Microscopical Examination of Drinking Water' (1883). He died at Southall on 7 Feb. 1908. 