MacPherson was elected as a conservative to the Legislative Assembly for Portland in November 1864,[2] and for Dundas in February 1866.[1] In September 1869, when the liberal Premier James McCulloch resigned, MacPherson was commissioned as Premier; at 35 years and 11 months, he became Victoria's youngest Premier.[3] His government was in a weak parliamentary position and had little prospect of survival. However it did succeed in passing an effective land selection act, allowing small farmers to select land on the squatters' pastoral runs, before being defeated in the Assembly and resigning in April 1870.
MacPherson served as Chief Secretary in the third McCulloch government in 1875 to 1877, before retiring from politics in July 1878,[1] still aged only 44. In 1880 he moved to England and settled in Surrey, where he died in 1894. He married Louisa Featherstonhaugh (/ˈfænʃɔː/FAN-shaw) in 1858: they had seven children.
^"ON THIS DAY". Parliament of Victoria. Retrieved 30 May 2016.
Geoff Browne, A Biographical Register of the Victorian Parliament, 1900–84, Government Printer, Melbourne, 1985
Don Garden, Victoria: A History, Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1984
Kathleen Thompson and Geoffrey Serle, A Biographical Register of the Victorian Parliament, 1856–1900, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1972
Raymond Wright, A People's Counsel. A History of the Parliament of Victoria, 1856–1990, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1992