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Kirkwood Genealogy
Robert Kirkwood and his Descendants Last updated Feb 2009
Descendants
Some High Achievers
Brief biographies of some Kirkwood descendants who made significant contributions to the development of Australia are presented below.
David Simpson Kirkwood (1826–1903)
David Simpson Kirkwood was an explorer and an engineer. In 1848 he joined the explorer Ludwig Leichhardt on his last expedition, which had the grand aim of finding a practical route from Moreton Bay to Perth, and which subsequently vanished without trace. After proceeding sixty miles, David returned home at the request of his parents.
He was the first to design the Clay Dry Docks, one at Macleay River and another at Shoalhaven, NSW. In the 1880s he surveyed the Lachlan and Edwards Rivers, being, with his party (which included his sons David and John) the first white man to go right down the Lachlan.
In 1864, David Simpson Kirkwood was Engineer, in Harbours and Rivers Dept, on ‘Cyclops’. The next year he was Chief Engineer on the dredge ‘Pluto’, and up to 1878 had similar commands on ‘Titan’, ‘Hunter’, and ‘Archimides’.
In 1883 he took up a position as resident engineer at Trial Bay, North Coast, NSW and constructed the waterworks there, the water being supplied for some miles by gravitation. He and his family were then in close association with the Trial Bay Gaol, built in the 1870s, it being then used as a prison for convicts employed on the breakwater construction. The Kirkwoods often attended Church in the Gaol.
In 1889 he was appointed Superintendent of Reclamations in Sydney and Newcastle. He retired in 1893. In 1901 he supervised the removal of the grave of Robert Cooper (his father in law) from Devonshire St Cemetery, Sydney to Rookwood Cemetery.
John Dawson Kirkwood (1857-
John Dawson Kirkwood was an explorer and a surveyor. In July 1883 he was licensed as a surveyor. Between 1884 and 1887 he carried out surveys on the Barwon and Bokhara Rivers, in the north of NSW. He was a member of the party led by his father, David Simpson Kirkwood, to make a survey of the Lachlan and Edwards Rivers.