The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Rae, John
Rae, John, M.A., J.P., was born at Aberdeen, Scotland, on Jan. 9th, 1813, and educated at the Grammar School and Marischal College. Having commenced the study of the law, he graduated M.A. at Aberdeen University in 1832, and subsequently attended law classes in Edinburgh, gaining a prize of £20 in 1837 for a literary essay. In Dec. 1839 he arrived in Sydney, having accepted the post of secretary and accountant to the North British Australasian Loan and Investment Company. In 1842 he wrote the letterpress for "Sydney Illustrated," and in July 1843 was appointed Town Clerk of Sydney. Ten years later he published a version of Isaiah in blank verse, with explanatory notes. In Jan. 1854, on the abolition of the Sydney Corporation, Mr. Rae was appointed one of the City Commissioners, and retained that position till the Corporation was re. established in April 1857. In November of that year he became secretary to the New South Wales Railway Department, and in Jan. 1861 was appointed Under-Secretary for Works, with the additional position of Commissioner of Railways. In 1877 the office of Commissioner of Railways was separated from that of Under-Secretary of Works, in which latter post Mr. Rae remained until March 1888. Mr. Rae (who in 1875 published "Gleanings from my Scrapbook") married, in 1845, Miss Elizabeth Thompson, who died in Dec. 1877. Mr. Rae is now a member of the Civil Service Board, constituted under the Civil Service Act of 1884.