Joseph Milner Macmaster (sometimes given as McMaster) was born in England in the 1850s, and arrived in Australia in the late nineteenth century, likely around the 1880s: newspaper reports from his senate campaign in 1903 put his arrival 'twenty years ago' ('Untitled', 1903).
He was the eldest son of Baptist minister Rev, Robert Paton Macmaster (born in Scotland) and his wife Annie. The couple had three other children: Annie (born c.1856), Robert McCheyne Macmaster (born c.1858), and Alice (born c.1870): Robert McCheyne Macmaster became a notable amateur chess player ('Yorkshire Chess History').
Macmaster was educated as Bristol Grammar School between October 1866 and June 1870 (Tidey, p.27), and described himself in advertisements for his school as having attended both London University and Glasgow University, though Tidey notes that 'he seems to have spent just one year at the latter, taking classes in Greek and Mathematics' (p.27).
By 1890, when he published the novel Our Pleasant Vices, he was already a well-known journalist. After a period editing the Hamilton Spectator, he had been working for the Melbourne Daily Telegraph as a leader writer (where he was said, according to a note in the Advertiser, to have used the pseudonym 'Viator'), and was shortly to move to the same position at the Age ('Crumbs', 'Melbourne'). The novel was widely described in contemporary newspapers as a new departure in Australian fiction, since it concentrated on small-town life, rather than station life or bush life. (See, for example, 'Our Pleasant Vices', Bacchus Marsh Express, 18 July 1891, p.4.)
By 1896, Macmaster had established Devonport Grammar School, in Tasmania: he had, apparently, worked as a teacher in England, and the newspapers offered a long list of people who could vouch for his effectiveness as a principal, including 'the Rev. F. Milner, M.A. B.P., and W. Gates, M.A., school inspector, both of Shepparton; Rev. A. Wade, B.A., North Melbourne; and W.T. Reay, editor of the "Melbourne Herald"' ('Current Topics'.) He left the position in 1901 to take up a role on the staff of the Hobart Mercury, apparently in consequence of his wife's ill-health, 'which precludes the necessary attention being exercised in connection with a large school where boarders are taken in' ('Devonport').
(Mrs Macmaster was a successful music teacher in her own right. After leaving Devonport Grammar School, where she had taught music, she taught at a Hobart-based school she called the Devon College School of Music from 1902 to at least 1906: several of her former students later appear in the lists of music exam results for Trinity College, London. The school ran on a conservatorium model, and taught 'Piano, Organ, Violin, and Singing (voice production). Students trained for the drawing-room, profession or stage.' See the advertisement in the Mercury, 22 January 1902, p.4.)
In Hobart, Macmaster continued to work as a schoolmaster, taking in a small number of boarding pupils at 'Glenlusk', some miles above Hobart: advertisements to this effect ran in Tasmanian newspapers throughout 1902, while Mrs Macmaster was building her music school and lecturing on musical education. Macmaster was also lecturing at this point, largely on the topic of temperance, but with additional political and historical talks.
By 1903, Macmaster was running for a Senate seat for the Labor Party, where newspapers described him as 'probably one of the most finished public speakers in Tasmania today ; is a keen debater, and sturdy advocate of the Democracy of the Labor Party' ('Untitled', 1903). He campaigned widely for the rest of the year, but was ultimately not elected. The experience gave way to an illustrated lecture, 'Playing at Parliament', which Macmaster toured around Tasmania through 1904 ('Playing at Parliament'). He revived his political ambitions in 1904, contesting the South Hobart seat in the House of Assembly, left vacant by the incumbent's resignation: he failed to win a traditionally conservative seat that many thought Labor had no chance of winning ('South Hobart Election'). He again contested the seat in 1906, and was again unsuccessful.
During this time, Macmaster had been working on the Clipper, but a schism in the newspaper in 1905 led to the establishment of a new paper, The Critic, run on 'more moderate lines' than the Clipper, and with Macmaster as editor ('Labor Journalism'). Among its publications was Macmaster's own serial, 'An Australian Labor Leader', which 'shows how, in the playing of the political "game," all national interests are subordinated to the pushing of petty, personal, and class interests' ('Our Second Serial').
The shift from the Clipper to the Critic marked a general shifting in Macmaster's politics: by the time he stood for Denison (unsuccessfully) in 1909, newspapers noted that ' For some time he was handicapped by association with the Labour party, but that is past and done with, so that he has the support of the moderates' ('General News').
Macmaster appears to have left Tasmania somewhere around 1909, after the unsuccessful Denison campaign. His association with the Critic ended at the same time, although the newspaper continued until at least the 1920s. By 1913, he was living in Victoria, first in Moonee Ponds and then in Essendon. He retained his interest in local affairs, becoming president of the North Essendon Progress Association. In 1920, the family moved to Frankston, where Macmaster 'proposes to interest himself in land' ('A Welcome Citizen'). Despite this, his obituary indicated that he had continued to work as a journalist after the move to Frankston ('The Passing of an Eminent Journalist').
He drowned in Wangaratta in 1922, when his failing eyesight apparently caused him to take a wrong turn and lose his footing on the river bank ('The Passing of an Eminent Journalist').
Macmaster's daughter, Dorothea (1902-1984), worked as a musician (primarily as a pianist): she departed Australia in 1949.
Sources
'Crumbs', Evening Journal, 14 October 1890, p.2.
'Current Topics', Launceston Examiner, 28 November 1896, p.10.
'Devonport', North Western Advocate and the Emu Bay Times, 1 August 1901, p.2.
'General News', Examiner, 14 September 1908, p.7.
'Labor Journalism', North Western Advocate and the Emu Bay Times, 7 August 1905, p.2.
'Melbourne', Bendigo Advertiser, 30 June 1891, p.2.
'Our Second Serial', The Critic, 21 September 1907, p.7.
'The Passing of an Eminent Journalist', Frankston and Somerville Standard, 12 May 1922, p.2.
'Playing at Parliament', Examiner, 21 May 1904, p.6.
'South Hobart Election', Daily Telegraph, 1 August 1904, p.5.
Tidey, John. The Big Sheppartonian : A Life of Sir Andrew Fairley. North Melbourne: Arcadia, 2015. (see esp. pp.26-30)
[Untitled], Advertiser, 28 July 1891, p.4.
[Untitled], Herald, 14 November 1903, p.2.
'A Welcome Citizen', Morning Standard, 27 August 1920, p.3.
'Yorkshire Chess History', 2012. (Sighted: 23/9/2015)
