The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/McMillan, Angus
McMillan, Angus, the discoverer of Gippsland, Victoria, was born at Glenbrittle, Skye, in 1810, and went to Sydney in 1830, residing on various stations in the interior till May 1839, at which time he was overseer on Lachlan Macalister's station in the Maneroo district of New South Wales. He had won the confidence of the blacks in the neighbourhood, who had traditions of a fine country to the south; and, with the intention of finding fresh pastoral areas, he started with one of them from Corrowong on May 28th. In June he was at Omeo, and subsequently explored the Tambo river, obtaining in September a view of the plain country further south. On a second expedition, in Dec. 1839, undertaken for the exploration of the plain country previously seen, he reached Lake King, which he mistook for Corner Inlet on the sea coast. He also discovered and named the Nicholson, Mitchell, Macalister, Thomson, Glengarry, Tangil, and Avon rivers and Mount Wellington. In the meantime Strzelecki and James Macarthur and James Riley were making their venturesome overland journey from Sydney to Westernport in Victoria. They left Sydney on Jan. 20th, and arrived at Westernport on May 11th, 1840, calling en route, on March 7th, at McMillan's camp on the Tambo river, and were supplied with provisions, a camp kettle, and a guide, who went a day's journey with them over the tracks into what McMillan, who was absent at the time, had called Caledonia Australis, but which, at the suggestion of Strzelecki, was named after Sir George Gipps, the governor of New South Wales. Mr. McMillan occupied a station on the Avon river, near to Macalister, in Oct. 1840, and in Feb. 1841 penetrated to Corner Inlet. Without detracting from the eminent services of Strzelecki, there can be no doubt that the honour of the first exploration of Gippsland and the marking of a road to a seaport belongs to McMillan, who died in May 1865.