JOHN ["

See also:

• ROC

Roc

See also:

• ROY, WILLIAM (1726-1790)

RoY "]

See also:

• JOHN [" Roc RoY "] MACGREGOR (1825-1892)

MACGREGOR (1825-1892)  , Scottish canoeist, traveller and philanthropist, son of General Sir Duncan MacGregor, K.C.B., was born at Gravesend on the 24th of January 1825 . He combined a roving disposition with a natural taste for mechanics and for literature . In 1839 he went to Trinity College, Dublin, and in 1844 to Trinity, Cambridge, where he was a wrangler . He was called to the bar in 1851, but did not pursue his profession . He travelled a great deal in Europe, Egypt, Palestine, Russia, Algeria and America, and between 1853 and 1863 was largely occupied with researches into the history and methods of marine propulsion . He was the pioneer of British canoeing . In 1865 he started on a long canoeing cruise in his Rob Roy " canoe, and in this way made a prolonged water tour through Europe, a record of which he published in 1866 as A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe . This book made MacGregor and his canoe famous . He made similar voyages in later years in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, the North Sea and Palestine . Another voyage, in the English Channel and on French waters, was made in a yawl . He published accounts of all these journeys . He did not, however, confine his energies to travelling .

He was active in charity and philanthropic

work, being one'of the founders of the Shoe-black Brigade . In 187o and again in 1873 he was elected on the London school board . He died at Boscombe on the 16th of July 1892 .