Launch of The man who planted Canberra at the Canberra Arboretum, September 2025, photos Tony Maple
One of Australia’s most prolific and respected authors and journalists, Robert Macklin, has died at 84 after a long battle with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Canberra-based and seemingly born to write, his byline enhanced some 32 books, stage and screenplays as well as hundreds of articles totalling more than 5 million words.
Macklin’s most recent book, The Man Who Planted Canberra – Charles Weston and his 3 million trees, was published by the National Library of Australia in late September 2025 to critical acclaim and is now in its second printing. The publication was supported by AGHS’s Kindred Spirits Fund. You can read an extract first published in October 2025 issue of Australian Garden History.
Lifelong friend and collaborator Peter Thompson said of Macklin:
His brilliance as a writer-reporter-novelist never ceased to amaze me: he could write about anything with style, insight and humour. Quite simply, he was one of Australia’s most versatile authors, and one of its most readable historians and columnists.