John McDonald

(Eastern District) Born at Auchendown, Banffshire, 25th May 1813, the son of John McDonald and Elizabeth Gordon; ordained a priest, 9th June 1838, and left for Scotland, 31st July 1838; while priest in charge of St. Patrick’s, Edinburgh, died of typhus, 27th January 1866.

Date	Age	Description
25 May 1813		Born Auchendown, Banffshire
1829-1833	16	Blairs
11 Sep. 1833	20	Arrived in the College
9 Jun. 1838	25	Ordained a priest
31 Jul. 1838	25	Left for Scotland
1838	25	St Mary's, Edinburgh
1838-1840	25	Perth
1840-1849	27	St Mary's, Edinburgh
1849-1856	36	St Patrick's, Edinburgh
1856-1864	43	Falkirk
1864-1866	51	St Patrick's, Edinburgh
27 Jan. 1866	52	Died of typhus, Edinburgh

Obituary of John Macdonald from the Scottish Catholic Directory of 1867.

Pray for the soul of the Rev. John McDonald, senior Priest of St Patrick’s Catholic Church, Edinburgh, who died of typhus fever in the Chapel house there, on the 27th January 1866, in the 53d year of his age, and 28th of his ministry.

This zealous Clergyman was born at Clunibeg, Auchendown, Banffshire, on the 25th May 1813. He entered Blairs College for the ecclesiastical state 5th August 1829, and was sent to the Scots College of Valladolid 27th August 1833. On completing his studies he was there ordained Priest on the 9th June 1838, and arrived in Scotland on the 29th of August following. Having been employed for some months as Missionary in Edinburgh, he was sent in December 1838 to Perth, where he remained till January 1840, when he was recalled to Edinburgh. In 1854 he was appointed as senior Clergyman to the charge of the Congregation of St Patrick’s, Lothian Street, and took up his residence along with two other Priests in the house purchased the year before in Brown Square. He laboured for several years with singular zeal and diligence among the Catholics of the Old Town. At length, finding that from want of health he was unable to cope with the work, he was, at his own request, removed in February 1856 to Falkirk, having then received from the Catholics of Edinburgh a well-earned testimonial for faithful services. In 1858 he established a station at Denny, where, in 1861, he built a School, which serves also as a Chapel for the Congregation. Early in May 1864 he was called back to St Patrick’s in South Gray’s Close, where, after nearly two years of toil, he closed his laborious and edifying career, devising all that he possessed for the support of an Orphan Institution.

The funeral service, which was attended by many of the Clergy, and a very large body of his former parishioners, was solemnly celebrated with the usual ritual by the Right Rev. Dr Strain, and his remains were interred in the ancient cemetery of St Cuthbert’s.