Alexander MacFarlane, FRS was a Scottish merchant, planter and astronomer. Born into an aristocratic family, he graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1728. MacFarlane subsequently emigrated to the British colony of Jamaica, where he started working as a businessman before becoming a prominent landowner and politician. He was appointed as Jamaica's first Postmaster General in 1735 and elected to the colony's House of Assembly for Saint Elizabeth Parish in 1754. At the time of his death, MacFarlane's vast estate included six sugar plantations and 761 enslaved people.
- Occupation
- astronomer, plantation owner, mathematician
- Born
- 1702
- Died
- August 23, 1755
