Captain Patrick Logan (baptised 15 November 1791 – 17 October 1830) was a Scottish army officer who was the commandant of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement from 1826 until his death in 1830 at the hands of Aboriginal Australians.

[4][1] Logan's family could trace their ancestry to two representatives who accompanied Sir James Douglas to the Holy Land in the 14th century.

In November, Governor Thomas Brisbane appointed Logan as commandant of the convict settlement at Moreton Bay, Queensland.

He believed that the settlement was a place to punish the convicts, forcing them to work by hand from sunrise to sunset.

[4] In 1827 the Attorney General noted that Logan had in multiple situations ordered that convicts be subject to 150 lashes,[8] justifying the extreme criticism bestowed on him in the contemporary ballad Moreton Bay.

[11] On a return journey, Logan, Allan Cunningham, Charles Fraser and a small party attempted to ascend the peak, believing they were climbing Mount Warning, which was first identified by James Cook.

From atop the summit, which was at the time the highest point reached in Australia,[1] Logan was able to see the true Mount Warning.

On 9 October Logan set out to explore and chart the headwaters of the Brisbane River with a small party of one private (his servant), and three convicts.

Searches eventually led to first his saddle, then his dead horse, hidden by boughs in a stream bed, then his body, buried in a shallow grave.

[13] However, contemporary news reports are emphatic that he was murdered with native weapons, as proved by the settlement's surgeon, Mr Cowper, at an inquest.

[1][15] Moreton Bay convicts "manifested insane joy at the news of his murder, and sang and hoorayed all night, in defiance of the warders.

The Commandant (1975) is a historical fiction novel by Jessica Anderson which describes the Moreton Bay penal settlement under Logan's command and the events surrounding his death from the viewpoint of his wife's sister Frances (a fictional character), who lives with the Logan family at the penal colony.