Family and marriages
John Donaldson was born at Cockenzie and Port Seton in East Lothian, Scotland, the son of Captain Peter Donaldson and his wife, Mary Dalgleish. [2] Captain Donaldson had sailed regularly from Port Seton Harbour, then in 1962 it is recorded the vessel Shearwater navigating the Bass Strait Islands with a cargo of livestock under his command was lost off Ninth Island. He and his crew were saved and there are still remains of the ship on the island today. [3] [4]
On 31 August 1963, John Donaldson married his first wife, Henrietta Clark Horne (1942–1997), at Port Seton. They emigrated to Tasmania, Australia, in November of that year. Donaldson's parents, his elder brother Peter and younger sister Roy also emigrated to Tasmania. [5] His father then joined a large maritime trading company as a captain. They had four children, Jane Alison Donaldson (born 26 December 1965), Patricia Anne Donaldson (born 16 March 1968), John Stuart Donaldson (born 9 July 1970) and Mary Elizabeth Donaldson (born 5 February 1972), married in 2004 to Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark (now King Frederik X). [6]
In addition to British citizenship, Donaldson obtained Australian citizenship in 1975. [7]
Henrietta died on 20 November 1997, and Donaldson later married Susan Elizabeth Horwood (born 1940) on 5 September 2001. She is a novelist who writes under the names Susan Moody, Susannah James and Susan Madison. [8] [9]
Career
After receiving his doctorate in 1967, Donaldson remained at the University of Tasmania as a lecturer in applied mathematics, becoming Dean of UTAS Faculty of Science until retiring in 2003. With the Earl of Dunmore, he served on the Scottish Australian Heritage Council. [11]
Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Donaldson was previously a Visiting Professor at several universities in Houston, Montreal, then Oxford, from 2004 at Aarhus University and from 2006 also at the University of Copenhagen. [12]
A keen rugby player and a member of the University Associates Rugby Union Club, John Donaldson is renown as having captained the last Tasmanian State Rugby Team to play against a touring New Zealand All Black Team, at Queensborough Oval, Hobart, on 25 May 1968.
Bass Strait is a strait separating the island state of Tasmania from the Australian mainland. The strait provides the most direct waterway between the Great Australian Bight and the Tasman Sea, and is also the only maritime route into the economically prominent Port Phillip Bay.
The Kent Group are a grouping of six granite islands located in Bass Strait, north-west of the Furneaux Group in Tasmania, Australia. Collectively, the group is comprised within the Kent Group National Park.
Frederik X is King of Denmark. He acceded to the throne following his mother's abdication on 14 January 2024.
Mary is Queen of Denmark as the wife of King Frederik X.
The history of Tasmania begins at the end of the Last Glacial Period when it is believed that the island was joined to the Australian mainland. Little is known of the human history of the island until the British colonisation of Tasmania in the 19th century.
King Island is an island in Bass Strait, belonging to the Australian state of Tasmania. It is the largest of four islands known as the New Year Group and the second-largest island in Bass Strait. The island's population at the 2021 census was 1,617 people, up from 1,585 in 2016. The local government area of the island is the King Island Council.
The Furneaux Group is a group of approximately 100 islands located at the eastern end of Bass Strait, between Victoria and Tasmania, Australia. The islands were named after British navigator Tobias Furneaux, who sighted the eastern side of these islands after leaving Adventure Bay in 1773 on his way to New Zealand to rejoin Captain James Cook. Navigator Matthew Flinders was the first European to explore the Furneaux Islands group, in the Francis in 1798, and later that year in the Norfolk.
Cape Barren Island, officially truwana / Cape Barren Island, is a 478-square-kilometre (185 sq mi) island in Bass Strait, off the north-east coast of Tasmania, Australia. It is the second-largest island of the Furneaux Group, with the larger Flinders Island to the north, and the smaller Clarke Island to the south. The highest point on the island is Mount Munro at 715 metres (2,346 ft). Mount Munro is named after James Munro, a former convict turned sealer who, from the 1820s, lived for more than 20 years with various indigenous women on nearby Preservation Island.
The following lists events that happened during 1835 in Australia.
Waterhouse Island, part of the Waterhouse Island Group, is a 287-hectare (710-acre) granite island situated in Banks Strait, part of Bass Strait, lying close to the north-eastern coast of Tasmania, Australia.
John Donaldson may refer to:
Hogan Island, the largest island of the Hogan Group, is a 232-hectare (570-acre) granite island, located in northern Bass Strait, that lies between the Furneaux Group in north-east Tasmania, and Wilsons Promontory in Victoria, Australia. The island has a maximum elevation of 116 metres (381 ft) AHD.
The Beagle Island, part of the Badger Group within the Furneaux Group, is a 1.2-hectare (3.0-acre) unpopulated low, flat granite island, located in Bass Strait, lying west of the Flinders and Cape Barren islands, Tasmania, south of Victoria, in south-eastern Australia. The island is contained within a nature reserve and is part of the Chalky, Big Green and Badger Island Groups Important Bird Area.
The Ninth Island, officially Tareerpattel-tarerenner / Ninth Island, is a 32-hectare (79-acre) uninhabited granite island situated in Bass Strait as part of the Waterhouse Island Group, lying close to the north-eastern coast of Tasmania, Australia. In November 2018, it was listed for sale for the fourth time, at $1.98 million. The property for sale is a landlocked title within a conservation covenant, preventing access to the island by any means except helicopter.
The George Rocks, also historically known as King George's Rocks, is part of the Waterhouse Island Group, a group of three adjacent uninhabited granite islets and associated reefs with a combined area of 7 hectares, situated in Banks Strait, part of Bass Strait, lying close to the north-eastern coast of Tasmania, Australia.
The wedding of Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark, and Mary Donaldson took place on 14 May 2004 in the Copenhagen Cathedral.
The Hogan Group is a collection of six islands and islets located in the Bass Strait that define part of the border between mainland Australia and the island state of Tasmania. Within the jurisdiction of Tasmania, the Hogan Group forms a land border between the states of Tasmania and Victoria. The island group is officially designated unallocated Crown land, within the Flinders Municipality in Tasmania and the South Gippsland Shire in Victoria.
Mary: The Making of a Princess is an Australian television film produced for Network Ten. It premiered on Network Ten on 15 November 2015.
During her New Year's Eve address on 31 December 2023, Margrethe II announced that she on 14 January 2024 would abdicate the Danish throne to her eldest son Frederik X. Being the first voluntary abdication of a Danish monarch since that of Eric III in 1146, the date marked the 52nd anniversary of her reign which began in 1972 upon the death of her father Frederik IX. On 14 January, she signed her declaration of abdication at Christiansborg Palace, whereafter Frederik X was proclaimed king, while his wife Mary became queen and his eldest son Christian crown prince.
