He was educated at the Glasgow Academy University of Edinburgh and after arriving in Queensland in 1908 took up a variety of bush related jobs.
On 4 June 1913 MacDonald married Mary Irene Enid Ward[1] (died 1961)[2] and together had one son and two daughters.
The son, Peter Macdonald (9 January 1916 – 11 March 1943) was an RAAF Pilot Officer, lost presumed killed in WWII.
[3][4] His young widow, Orme Augusta Marsh Macdonald, née Bell (18 May 1914 – 11 February 2008), in 1947 married again to widowed solicitor Hubert Silvers Black (17 January 1906 – 22 October 1985), son of mine manager Robert Silvers Black.
[1] MacDonald, representing the Country Party, won the seat of Stanley at the 1938 Queensland state election.