Family background
Neil Dunkeith McKenna was born in Orange, NSW, on 19 June 1874, son of James McKenna and Mary Neil. He married (1) Beatrice E Burgess on 28 November 1904 in Orange, NSW and they had 2 sons and 1 daughter. He married (2) Anne Neil (1888-1961) on 5 November 1929 in Randwick, NSW and there were 2 daughters and 1 son from this marriage. Neil McKenna died at hospital, late of Randwick, on 13 August 1969, aged 95 years and he was buried in the Catholic Section of Botany Cemetery. He lived at 23 Dutruc Street, Randwick (1936).
Occupation & interests
Neil McKenna was the secretary of the NSW Owners and Trainers’ Association and a well-known Randwick horse trainer from the 1920s through to the 1950s.
Community activity
In 1949 McKenna, still training race horses, told the Evening Advocate newspaper he took a job with Cobb and Co at 11 years of age for ten shillings a week. He began at Byrock near Bourke and it was here he developed his love of horses.
Local government service
Neil Dunkeith McKenna was an alderman on Waterloo Council in 1923-28.
References
‘The Councils’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 December 1922 p.10, http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/16049491
‘Must Apologise’, Evening News, 26 January 1928, p. 6, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article121700704
‘The Veteran Neil McKenna’, The Evening Advocate, 17 June 1949, p. 7, http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/213995474