John Dalgleish Donaldson

John Dalgleish Donaldson (born 5 September 1941), of Clan Donald, is a Scots-Australian professor and father of Mary, Queen of Denmark, the wife of King Frederik X.

Family and marriages
Born at Cockenzie and Port Seton in East Lothian, Scotland, the son of Captain Peter Donaldson. Captain Donaldson had sailed regularly from Port Seton Harbour, then in 1962 it is recorded the vessel Shearwater navigating the Bass Strait Islands with a cargo of livestock under his command was lost off Ninth Island. He and his crew were saved and there are still remains of the ship on the island today. On 31 August 1963, John Donaldson married his first wife, Henrietta Clark Horne (1942–1997), at Port Seton. They emigrated to Tasmania, Australia, in November of that year. Donaldson's parents and his elder brother Peter and younger sister Roy also emigrated to Tasmania. His father then joined a large maritime trading company as a captain. They had four children, Jane Alison Donaldson (born 26 December 1965), Patricia Anne Donaldson (born 16 March 1968), John Stuart Donaldson (born 9 July 1970) and Mary Elizabeth Donaldson (born 5 February 1972), married in 2004 to Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark (now King Frederik X).

In addition to British citizenship, Donaldson obtained Australian citizenship in 1975.

Henrietta died on 20 November 1997, and Donaldson later married Susan Elizabeth Horwood (born 1940) on 5 September 2001. She is a novelist who writes under the names Susan Moody, Susannah James and Susan Madison.

Education
In 1963, Donaldson graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a BSc degree with honours in Mathematics and Physics. After Edinburgh, Donaldson moved to Australia to work under the direction of mathematician Professor David Elliott at the University of Tasmania, taking a PhD in Mathematics in 1967.

Career
After receiving his doctorate in 1967, Donaldson remained at the University of Tasmania as a lecturer in applied mathematics, becoming Dean of UTAS Faculty of Science until retiring in 2003. With the Earl of Dunmore, he served on the Scottish Australian Heritage Council.

Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Donaldson was previously a Visiting Professor at several universities in Houston, Montreal, then Oxford, from 2004 at Aarhus University and from 2006 also at the University of Copenhagen.

Honours, title and coat of arms
Upon the marriage of his daughter the then Crown Princess Mary in 2004, Donaldson was appointed to the Order of the Dannebrog. In accordance with the statutes of the Danish Royal Orders, both he and his daughter were granted arms to display in the Chapel of the Royal Orders at Frederiksborg Castle.
 * PhD (UTAS), doctorate received by Dr J. D. Donaldson, 1968
 * Grand Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog, 2004

Notes and references

 * Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Fürstliche Häuser, Reference: 2004 11
 * The Ancestry of Mary Elizabeth Donaldson 2006, Reitwiesner, William Addams, Reference: nr.2