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Francis Peter MacCabe was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1817 and died in Bowral, New South Wales in 1897.
On arrival in Australia, MacCabe undertook surveys for the NSW Surveyor General, Sir Thomas Mitchell from 1841 until 1856. In 1856 MacCabe resigned as a Surveyor and worked until 1883 as Manager of the Mt Keira colliery near Wollongong. During his time in the area, he was on the first North Illawarra Council in 1869 and served as its Mayor in 1870.
MacCabe’s Surveys of Western New South Wales.
In 1848 MacCabe began his major surveying work on the rivers of western NSW. He first surveyed the Murrumbidgee River, from its junction with the Lachlan to its junction with the Murray River. From this point, MacCabe continued down the Murray River and reached the Murray-Darling Junction in early September.
Between May and June 1850, MacCabe proceeded to survey west of this Confluence around the northern side of Lake Victoria to Chowilla and returned east along the course of the Murray River.
MacCabe’s maps of the Murrumbidgee, Murray and Darling Rivers are notable for the numerous Indigenous place names that he recorded.
On the 5 March 2008, a tri-State meeting was convened in Melbourne between Mr John Tulloch, Victorian Surveyor-General and Registrar of Geographic Names; Mr Warwick Watkins, New South Wales Surveyor-General and Director-General of Lands, Mr Peter Kentich, South Australian Surveyor-General, the Geographical Names Board of New South Wales; and a Victorian Geographic Place Names Committee.
The Members of the meeting resolved to name the south-west corner of New South Wales MacCabe Corner in honour of the Surveyor Francis Peter MacCabe for is significant field surveys in this area. On the 6 September 2008 the MacCabe Corner plaque was officially unveiled by Mr Warick Watkins, Surveyor-General of New South Wales and Mr Chris McRae, Executive Director Land Victoria. Also present at the unveiling were Michael MacCabe, grandson of Francis Peter MacCabe, John Tullock, Surveyor-General of Victoria and Paul Harcombe, Chief Surveyor of New South Wales.