Australian Dictionary of Biography entry: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mckillop-donald-4111

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Surname spelled as McKillop on his gravestone, and by ADB.

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Fr David Strong SJ, The Australian dictionary of Jesuit biography 1848-2015, Second Edition, 2017:
MacKillop, Donald

Pastor, missionary; born Melbourne, Victoria, 27 April 1853; died Adelaide, 2 February 1925, aged 71.

Donald MacKillop, brother of Saint Mary MacKillop, was a student at St Aloysius' College, Sevenhill, 1867-71, and entered the Society there, 7 June 1872, the third Australian to do so. He also studied rhetoric and philosophy, and did his regency there as well. He left for Europe in 1882, and studied theology at Innsbruck, Mold and St Beuno's, being ordained in 1885. Tertianship followed at Roehampton, London.

He arrived back in Adelaide, South Australia, 10 October 1886, and went to the Northern Territory mission, first at Rapid Creek, 1886-89, where he worked and studied the Mulluk dialect, and then to the Daly River, 1889-90, when he was appointed superior of the mission.

This mission, founded from the Jesuits at Sevenhill, 1882-90, involved 19 Jesuits and had the largest number of Aborigines in mission stations in the Northern Territory. Anthropologists praised the Jesuits for their insights and appreciation of Aboriginal culture.

MacKillop completely reorganised the mission. He obtained a new grant of higher and more fertile land on the Daly; abandoned Rapid Creek and concentrated all the missionaries at the new station of St Joseph's or ' new Uniya'. He installed a pump for irrigation, obtained a sewing machine for making clothes, planted coconuts and vegetables, learned the Larrikiyah language and used it in the small school. Unfortunately, only one adult was baptised in the nine years of the mission at Rapid Creek. When the whole Northern mission was closed, 78 adults and 197 infants had been baptised, in addition to 78 being baptised in danger of death. If success were measured in terms of baptisms only, then the value of the mission would have to be questioned. He was critical of government for not granting sufficient land and finance to missions in tribal territories.

1892 saw MacKillop encountering hard times. He had few funds, he was suffering from influenza, and there were food shortages. During June 1893, he went on a tour collecting money and publicizing the mission, and returned to the Daly in July 1894 with £800 and a magic lantern. In time he acquired a herd of pigs and a steam engine for sawing and pumping. Tobacco was planted, as well as sugar cane. Leather was made from goat and bullock hides. Despite all this work, the mission was closed in June 1899 after disastrous floods.

MacKillop had been a real pioneer in relation to the accumulating of knowledge of the religion and customs of the aborigines. The Jesuits shielded them from exploitation and cruel treatment. Conversions were very slow, yet the influence of the Jesuit missionaries was long remembered. MacKillop's 'Anthropological Notes on the Aboriginal Tribes of the Daly River, North Australia' had been published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, 1892-93.

During the last years of the mission, MacKillop became unwell and was replaced as superior, going to the Norwood parish, 1897-1901. He spent time also in the parishes of Hawthorn, Richmond and Sevenhill. During his final years at Norwood, 1913-25, he was impaired in health, but was a consultor, 1914-21. He said Mass and heard confessions and preached from time to time.

At his death, he was remembered as a man of gifts and attainments, exceptional knowledge of scientific matters, an eloquent preacher, and devoted priest. It is coincidental that the first three Australian Jesuits all died in 1925 within a few months of each other, MacKillop and the two O'Brien's, John and Thomas.

(Reproduced by permission of Fr David Strong SJ.)