FALCONER, ROBERT (1835-1917)

FALCONER, ROBERT, principal of the Newcastle Grammar School, 1854-55, and Presbyterian missionary; b. Stonehaven, Kincardineshire, Scotland, 9 Nov 1835, s/o William Falconer and Elizabeth Johnstone; brother of James Falconer; m. 1865, Mary Hutton, of Tasmania; d. Warragul, near Melbourne, Australia, 22 Jul 1917.

Robert Falconer was brought to the Miramichi from Scotland by his parents in 1842. He spent the rest of his childhood years in Newcastle, and after finishing the program of studies taught at the Newcastle Grammar School by John H. Sivewright he matriculated at King's College, Fredericton. In the census of 1851 he was enumerated as one of ten lodgers in the home of Margaret Wilcox of Fredericton, and in 1853 he took the BA degree, at age seventeen.

While Falconer was away at college the principal of the Newcastle Grammar School resigned and moved to Bathurst. The school was without a regular teacher for more than three years, until October 1854, at which time Falconer was hired. He taught for twelve months and then left to study for the Presbyterian ministry.

Falconer was ordained in 1858. In 1861 he was living with his parents in Newcastle and doing missionary work at Black River and elsewhere, unattached to a particular church. In 1862 he delivered an address to the YMCA in Chatham on "The Powers of Kindness." About a year later he departed for Australia. He made his permanent home there, living for nine years in New South Wales and for forty-nine in Victoria. He preached for periods of time, at least, in the two states mentioned and was classified in his death record as a Presbyterian minister.

Falconer and his wife, Mary Hutton, had five children, the three eldest of whom visited the Miramichi as young adults in 1891. Falconer himself visited in the same period and again in 1897, when he came by way of London and attended events related to Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. He stayed in New Brunswick for fifteen months in 1897-98, spending much of his time with his brother James Falconer but also preaching in the Campbellton area. He visited again in the winter of 1903. His Australian mailing address in 1897 was "Miramichi, Surreyhills, Melbourne," but he and his family later resided in the nearby town of Warragul. He was eighty-one years old when he died there in 1917. His widow died in Melbourne in 1923.