Person Page - 70

     John Cameron was born on 13 March 1847 in Berbice, British Guiana.² He was the son of Donald Charles Cameron and Margaret Anne Moore.¹ John was educated at Scotch College, Melbourne, and at Geelong Church of England Grammar School, where 'I never did any good beyond being a good fighter'. He began work as a jackeroo in 1859; in 1861-63, with the Crombie brothers, the Camerons and their flocks pushed northwest from Inverell, New South Wales, to Barcaldine, Queensland. After eighteen months at Barcaldine Downs, John became overseer of Alice Downs and subsequently manager of Wilby. When the Camerons, Crombies, T. S. Mort J. T. Allan and Herbert Garrett formed a partnership embracing an empire of seven huge runs, John entered the firm. The partnership was dissolved in 1877 but he retained, with his brother-in-law James Crombie, Kensington Downs and Greenhills. The agreement with Crombie disintegrated in 1881 and Cameron and his mother kept Kensington Downs of 625 square miles (1619 km2), 62 miles (100 km) north-east of Longreach. He lived there until 1891 when he retired to Brisbane.

Cameron was more a representative of the second phase of Queensland pastoral pioneering, when capital and managerial skill generally superseded physical endurance, luck and personal persistence as prerequisites for survival. Yet he experienced many early vicissitudes and hardships which shortened his life: he once spent several days in the branches of a gum (a marooned pastoral mariner) during a terrible Dawson River flood. He took pains to avoid the homicidal problems of squatter-Aboriginal confrontation.

Cameron's 'peculiar' attitudes towards Chinese labour - 'He has always contended that the Chinese gardener or cook is unnecessary and Kensington Downs has been always for a White Australia' - blunted Labor opposition to both his person and his business interests. Cameron, whose hospitality, courtesy and essential fairness demonstrated both his generous tolerance and strong personality, survived long enough to receive the respect of western Labor politicians who had sprung from the same genre. George Kerr remarked in 1904: 'The member poses, and has a right to pose, as a good and kind employer'. In 1891, however, Cameron had fulminated that 'in the fight for a principle (free contract) he was prepared to lose every sheep that he possessed'.

On 15 April 1889 Cameron convened a meeting of employers at Barcaldine 'to consider the advisableness of forming a Union for the prevention of strikes and the amicable settlement of disputes which may arise'. This body subsequently became the Central Queensland Pastoral Employers' Association: Cameron was its president in 1893-1908. On an intercolonial level he helped organize, co-ordinate and direct the pastoralists' campaign against the labour thrust of the 1890s, an activity which quietly paralleled, and historically may well have been as effective as, the 'new unions' and the colonial Labor parties. In 1897-1908 he was president of the United Pastoralists' Association of Queensland during a critical period of labour, economic and climatic problems.

Helping the conservative coalition pick up the pieces following the Queensland National Bank disasters (he served as pastoral valuer and consultant to the 1896-97 committee, which revealed unpalatable truths), Cameron became part of that brief revival and consolidation of Queensland quasi-capitalism which followed the depression of the 1890s, when he was hard hit. He was wise enough to avoid purchasing pastoral freeholds: 'I would sell land to anybody who would be fool enough to buy it', he declared in 1904, 'I do not own an acre in Western Queensland; and I do not wish to own any'. But he was forced to rely heavily on bank and agency credit: in 1896 he mortgaged Kensington Downs's 113,117 sheep to Dalgety's the Mercantile Bank and the Commercial Bank of Australia.

Cameron survived the depression, only to suffer a serious set-back during the great drought and wool-price slump of 1900-02. Yet his probity, political influence and individual solvency enabled him to replace the old, discredited entrepreneurs as chairman of Morehead Ltd, and as a director of the Queensland National Bank, the Darling Downs and Western Lands Co., the Queensland Meat Export and Agency Co. Ltd, the Union Trustee Co. and the Alliance Insurance Co.

Elected to the Legislative Assembly for Mitchell in 1893 as a central separationist, free trader and stern retrenches, Cameron used his qualities of honesty, shrewdness and even temper to influence coalition ministers. Declining office, he worked for the pastoral interest behind the scenes. He spoke infrequently but always to the point, preferring to argue the pastoralists' case for effective wage-reduction and voluntary arbitration in public, while privately urging the government to smash the shearing strikes of 1891 and 1894. These tactics were successful and Cameron never attracted the opprobrium heaped on Tozer and Sir Samuel Griffith

His defeat by Labor candidates in 1896 (Mitchell) and 1899 (Barcoo) signified that the squatters' position was now electorally hopeless in western Queensland. Having declared publicly in 1895 that 'I have never believed in the principle of one man one vote, and nothing will ever convince me that men should have equal voting rights', he was clearly an anachronism. But he remained undaunted. Deeply disturbed by the pastoral industry's plight, Cameron re-entered parliament for Brisbane North in 1901 and, with his co-member E. B. Forrest, was never seriously challenged. Ill health compelled his retirement in February 1908.

A staunch Philp adherent, he was prepared to be flexible if it would help the pastoralists. By 1905 he was even conceding the right of women as well as pastoral workers to vote, although the idea of an income tax remained particularly obnoxious. Cameron never denied that he entered parliament as a squatters' delegate to retrieve a disastrous situation. Parliament, he said, 'must revive the great primary industries of the State so that all else would flourish'.'The city', he declared in 1904, 'was only the great emporium, the great mart where primary products were distributed, where buyer and seller most easily met. Without a prosperous back-country, the city would languish'. Most Queenslanders agreed with him. Although he failed to extend pastoral leases and revise pastoral classifications in the Pastoral Holdings New Leases Act of 1901, Cameron worked for thirty amendments in a bill of sixteen clauses. His tactics succeeded in extracting from the government more generous provisions than they were initially prepared to concede. In 1902 he effectively used the Queensland financial lobby in London and skilfully conducted a model campaign that generated light for the squatters rather than heat amongst the politicians. This was his apogee. The (Sir Arthur) Morgan ministry was less sympathetic. In March 1904, replying to Cameron's presentation of a memorial by 400 leading squatters pleading for further relief, Morgan was unsympathetic and allowed only some minor concessions.

Cameron visited Japan for his health in 1906 and never again spoke in the assembly. His political career concluded on a bizarre note which indicated that the shape of Queensland politics had decisively altered. In 1905 he had published the text of a land tax bill in the Daily Mail, alleging that he had found it on the floor of a room in Parliament House. It is probable that the text had been leaked to Cameron, whose desire to injure a Liberal government and defeat a land tax momentarily got the better of him. The tactic backfired and the conservative rump of a dozen or so members was tactically outmanoeuvred by the government. Cameron's declining health had undoubtedly affected his judgment. John Cameron married his first wife Sarah Annie Lodge, daughter of Oliver Lodge, on 18 April 1877 at St. John's Church, Mudgee, New South Wales.^3,4 John Cameron married Louise Christine Heussler, daughter of Hon. J.C. Heussler, on 27 December 1899 in Maida Hill Presbyterian Church.⁵ John Cameron died on 29 June 1914 at the age of 67 After a long illness Cameron died of intestinal neoplasm at his home Avoca, Albion, Brisbane. He was buried in the Toowong cemetery with ceremonies befitting an elder of the Presbyterian Church and the chief of the Caledonian and Burns clubs.⁶

     John Cameron was the son of John Cameron and Sarah Annie Lodge.¹

     John Cameron M.D. was the son of John Cameron and Isabella Kennedy.¹ John Cameron M.D. died on 29 January 1857 in New Amsterdam, Berbice, British Guiana, of yellow fever.²

     Kenneth Beauchamp Cameron was the son of William Justin Beauchamp Cameron and Elizabeth Patricia Cameron.¹ Kenneth Beauchamp Cameron married Eileen Mary Hooper.¹ In July 1943 Kenneth Beauchamp Cameron and Eileen Mary Hooper was living in Thallon, Queensland.²

     Margaret Anne Cameron was born on 11 December 1850 in Berbice, British Guiana.² She was the daughter of Donald Charles Cameron and Margaret Anne Moore.¹ Margaret Anne Cameron married William Crombie, son of David Guillan Crombie and Janet Campbell (Jessie) Webster, on 22 July 1874 in the Presbyterian Church, Ipswich, Queensland.¹ Margaret Anne Cameron died on 20 December 1885 in Greenhills, Muttaburra, Queensland, at the age of 35 and buried in Greenhills Graveyard.^1,3

     Margaret Anne Cameron was born say September 1884. She was the daughter of Donald Charles Kennedy Cameron and Arabella Adelaide Anita Cameron.¹ Margaret Anne Cameron died on 21 January 1886 in Uanda "aged 1 year and 9 months."²

     Percival Lodge Cameron was the son of John Cameron and Sarah Annie Lodge.¹

     Richard Cameron was the son of Kenneth Beauchamp Cameron and Eileen Mary Hooper.¹ Richard Cameron died on 24 December 1941 killed whilst serving in the R.A.A.F. as a sergeant during the Battle of Britain.¹ He was commemorated in 1953 on Panel 62. Runnymede Memorial.²

     Vera Annie Cameron was the daughter of John Cameron and Sarah Annie Lodge.¹ Vera Annie Cameron died unmarried.¹

     Westgart Moore Cameron was the son of John Cameron and Louise Christine Heussler.¹ Westgart Moore Cameron died before 1914 in infancy.¹

     William Beauchamp Cameron was born circa 1917.² He was the son of Kenneth Beauchamp Cameron and Eileen Mary Hooper.¹ William Beauchamp Cameron died on 2 July 1943 killed whilst serving in the R.A.A.F as a Flight Sergeant.^1,2 He is commemorated on the Sydney Memorial for those with no known grave. Those recorded on this memorial mostly died in the S.E. Pacific theatre of war.²

     William Henry Moore Cameron was born in 1861.² He was the son of Donald Charles Cameron and Margaret Anne Moore.¹ William Henry Moore Cameron died in December 1916 in Newport News, Virginia, from pneumonia whilst en-route from London to New Zealand on the British steamer Rotorrua. He had been to London on business conected with supplying the British Government with beef.³

     William Justin Beauchamp Cameron married Elizabeth Patricia Cameron, daughter of Donald Charles Cameron and Margaret Anne Moore.¹

     [5 daughters] Cameron was the daughter of Donald Charles Cameron and (unknown) Cameron of Letterfinlay.¹

     (unknown) Cameron was the daughter of Sir Donald Charles Cameron KCMG, DSO and Evelyn Stella Jardine.¹ (unknown) Cameron died before 1960.¹

      Fred Sewall Camp was living in Norwich, Connecticut, and has interest in a large cotton-mill there.¹ He was born circa 1849 in New York.² He was the son of Talcott Hale Camp and Ann Elizabeth Sewall.¹ Fred Sewall Camp married Harriet B. (Unknown).²

     George Camp was born on 8 August 1790 in Glastonbury, Connecticut.² He married Elizabeth Hitchcock.²

     George Van Santvoord Camp was born on 9 December 1860 in Watertown, New York.² He was the son of Talcott Hale Camp and Ann Elizabeth Sewall.¹ He was cashier of the Jefferson County National Bank for a number of years.² George Van Santvoord Camp died on 2 February 1915 at the age of 54.² He was buried in Brookside Cemetery, Watertown.²

     Talcott H. Camp was born circa 1878 in Connecticut.¹ He was the son of Fred Sewall Camp and Harriet B. (Unknown).¹

     Talcott Hale Camp was born on 17 January 1816 in Uthica, New York.³ He was the son of George Camp and Elizabeth Hitchcock.^2,3 Talcott Hale Camp was christened on 28 December 1817 at First Presbyterian Church, Utica, New York.² He married Ann Elizabeth Sewall, daughter of Henry Devereaux Sewall and Mary Catherine Norton, on 3 June 1847 in Watertown, New York, the marriage was conducted by the Rev. J.R. Boyd.⁴ "This genial and well-known gentleman, now at the age of 73 years, may regularly be found at his desk at the Jefferson County National Bank of Watertown, attending to his duties as president of that institution, which responsible position he has held for 34 years, for 25 years having had the entire management of its financial operations, under advice of an able body of directors. He has discharged his trust with conspicuous ability and success, and may well derive satisfaction from the knowledge that during these years the policy of the bank has been helpful, by its financial aid and personal encouragement, in developing the resources of Jefferson County; the stock-holders, meanwhile, having received regular and liberal dividends.
Mr. Camp was born in Utica, N. Y., and soon after his father, George Camp, removed with his family to Sackets Harbor, a place of activity and prosperity, where, in 1817, he printed the first newspaper of that village, called the Sackets Harbor Gazette. Sackets Harbor, however, failed to fulfill the prophecy of its friends in regard to its growth and prosperity, and this led many young men of that place to seek homes and occupation elsewhere. Mr. Camp was offered important positions elsewhere, but selected Watertown as a place of advancing growth and influence, and located there in the spring of 1840. He opened a drug and paint store in Loveland Paddock’s block, on Washington Place, and this prosperous business established by him has continued in the same locality for 50 consecutive years, for the last 25 years being conducted by George B. Massey and Mr. Camp’s son, Walter Hale.
Mr. Camp has been identified with numerous enterprises and corporations which have been influential in advancing the material, educational, and moral growth of his chosen residence. At an early day he advocated and assisted in the arduous attempt to build the railroad from Rome to Cape Vincent, and in 1863 was chosen one of the directors of the road, which office he held about 25 years, during seven of which he was its vice-president. The office of the treasurer of the corporation was located in Watertown, and its financial transactions were largely under the care and direction of Mr. Camp, and were so well supervised by him as to meet the hearty approval of the directors and stockholders. He has been connected with several manufacturing enterprises, but more intimately associated with the Watertown Steam Engine Company, continuing as one of its trustees for many years, and has aided in its growth until it has now become a large and flourishing concern, with one of the most extensive plants in the United States.
The Jefferson County Institute, an academy founded in 1837 by the Presbyterians and Congregationalists of the county, and for many years affording advanced educational advantages to the youth of both sexes, found in Mr. Camp a friend and supporter. For 40 years he has been one of its trustees, and is now its president; but the building, library, apparatus, etc., are leased to the city, and used by the High School, in the system of graded schools under the direction of the board of education. Mr. Camp is one of the trustees and officers of the Jefferson County Savings Bank, an institution eminently useful in encouraging persons of moderate income to deposit a portion of their earnings to accumulate and become a sure source of supply for future wants. This bank has paid no salaries to its trustees, their only compensation being the satisfaction they enjoy from the knowledge that the institution has become strong, popular, and helpful.
Mr. Camp has not been desirous of political preferment. As a patriotic citizen he has always sustained the laws and institutions of his native land; but in no sense has he been a narrow-minded partisan. Although eminently qualified, by business and executive ability and unimpeachable integrity, to fill positions of trust and responsibility in the gift of the people, he has left the race for office to be run by others. From the time of his coming to Watertown he has been a member of the First Presbyterian Church, a Christian institution recognized for its beneficient influence and generous charities, to which Mr. Camp has been a liberal contributor.
Mr. Camp is still not only active and engaged in many business pursuits, but is also prominent in social and literary circles. He is a charitable and kind-hearted Christian gentleman, and is ever ready to offer counsel and substantial aid to the numerous deserving ones who seek his advice. His physical and mental activity warrant the belief and hope that he has many more years of usefulness yet before him".⁵
Talcott Hale Camp died on 7 February 1897 at the age of 81.³

      Walter Hale Camp was living in Watertown and is of the firm Camp & Massey.¹ He was born circa 1851 in New York.² He was the son of Talcott Hale Camp and Ann Elizabeth Sewall.¹

     Walter T. Camp was born circa 1866 in Connecticut.¹ He was the son of Fred Sewall Camp and Harriet B. (Unknown).¹

     Adelaide Constance Campbell married Lord Arthur Lennox, son of Charles Lennox 4th Duke of Richmond and Charlotte Gordon.¹

     Alexander Campbell was the son of Lt. Col. Patrick Campbell.¹ Alexander Campbell married Jane Ann Sewell, daughter of Stephen Sewell K.C. and Jane Caldwell, on 13 April 1849 in Craven Cottage, Hamilton, Lanarkshire, the service was conducted by the Rev. Mr. Henderson.² Alexander Campbell died in 1872 in Tours, France.¹

     Anne Campbell was born in 1594. She was the daughter of Archibald Campbell 7th Earl of Argyl. Anne Campbell married George Gordon 2nd Marquess of Huntly, son of George Gordon 1st Marquess of Huntly and Henrietta Stewart, circa February 1607. Anne Campbell died on 14 June 1649.

     Annie Campbell was born in 1881.¹ She was the daughter of Patrick Edward Campbell and Marie Sontag.¹

     The marriage of Beatrice Stella Campbell and Major George Frederick Myddleton Cornwallis-West was registered in the quarter ending June 1914 in the Kensington Registration District.^1,2 Beatrice Stella Campbell died on 9 April 1940 in Pau, France.¹

     Benjamin Campbell was born circa 1858 in Alabama.¹ He was the son of Dr. Farquahard Campbell and Gabriella (Ella) Harriet Singleton.¹

     Elizabeth Campbell married William Foye.¹