Alexander Cameron and Mary Thomson Walker

Alexander and Mary

Alexander was born in Cumbernauld in 1850, the son of Daniel Cameron and Christina Grindlay. Mary was born in Greenock in 1859, the daughter of Andrew Walker and Jane Crosbie.

Alexander Cameron and Mary Thomson Walker were married on 4 April 1879 in Rothesay, Bute.

Alexander was born in Cumbernauld. At the time of his marriage he was living in Rothesay in Bute in Scotland. The family emigrated from Glasgow to South Africa in about 1894 at which time he was a journeyman joiner. In 1906 they returned to the UK and settled in Leicester.

I have no census returns for Alexander after the 1861 Scottish census. He is not with his family in Leicester in 1911. We know they were in South Africa from 1894 to 1906, but we might have expected to find him in 1891, 1881 or 1871. However I have not looked at censuses outside Britain yet.

This is interesting for two reasons: firstly Alexander is not with the family; secondly the number of children born alive is shown as 7. It says that 2 children have died and 5 are still living. However I have accounted for 7 as being alive beyond 1911 so I wonder if she thought she should only include those who were still living with her. It would appear then, that she had 2 additional children who died young, one of which was probably Daniel. Anyway the household that night consisted of Mary, Jenny an apprentice dressmaker, Ellen, John, Isobel and Elizabeth who were all scholars.

The record in the 1934 National Probate Calendar reads: Cameron Mary Thompson otherwise Mary of 64 Tower Street Leicester (wife of Alexander Cameron) died 10 June 1934 Probate Leicester 30 July to the said Alexander Cameron retired carpenter. Effects pds 711, 2s, 2d

Alexander died aged 91: running for a bus was involved. He may have suffered a heart attack or tripped and broken his leg, later dying from an illness caught in hospital. Either way he lived a lot longer than many other members of the family. The probate record reads: Cameron Alexander of 64 Tower Street Leicester died 13 May 1941 Probate Leicester to John Cameron joiner and Colin Granville Gibson commercial traveller. Effects pds 574, 9s 10d.

Children

Daniel appears on hand drawn family trees as a son of Alexander and Mary and not much is known about him. He is shown as being the oldest son. I have not been able to find either the 1881 or 1891 census for the family so cannot tell anything from those sources. We know that in the 1911 census Mary records having had two children who have died and a cousin remembered being told by one of Alexander's other children, Jenny, that she had had a brother who had drowned but the circumstances are not known.

Alex has found the death record of a Jeanie Walker Cameron who died in 1891 in Rothesay aged 8. The record needs to be checked to confirm the name of the parents, but a tree by a family member in the 1970s shows three children who died young: Daniel, Andrew and Jeanie.

Alexander was born in Greenock, Renfrewshire. When the rest of the family came back to England in 1906 he stayed on. He ran a garage in Klerksdorp and married his secretary Jean WALLACE who was 37 years younger than him. They had one son Ronald (who may have served in the navy) who married and had a daughter. Alec came back to the UK once or twice in the 1930s.

Willie was left behind when the family went to South Africa because he was a sickly child. He may have had a condition called ectodermal dysplasia(though this is by no means certain) which runs in the family and where you don’t sweat, which would have been a good reason not to take him to somewhere hot like South Africa. He is living with his mother’s sister, Janet MacVicar and family in the 1901 census. It is not known what happened when the family came back. According to one family member William's widow (Annie or Agnes) turned up in Leicester in the 1950s, much to everyone’s shock!

Jenny was born in Glasgow, about a year before the family emigrated to South Africa. In 1924 she married Charles Glichrist and they had two children Sheila and Graeme. Jenny died in Loughborough in 1978.

Ellen Mary was born in Jagersfontein on 19 October 1895. She married Harry Davey on 24 July 1920. He was a clerk aged 26 and she was a typist aged 24. They were married in St Stephen's Presbyterian Church in DeMontfort Square in Leicester. They had two sons, who each had two children one of which is Mark. Harry Davey died in 1957 and Ellen died in 1965.

Jack was born in Jagersfontein in 1898. He married Winifred E Watts in 1929 and I don't know if they had children. He died in 1966.

Isabella Margaret was also born in South Africa. In 1929 she married Colin Granville Gibson in Leicester and they had two sons. He marriage record shows her name as Isabella although on the census she is shown as Isobel. She died in Leicester in 1967, three years after her husband.

Elizabeth Warden Cameron was the last child and she was also born in South Africa: on 12 May 1904. She married Alfred Noel Marshall in 1928 in Leicester and they had one son. Alfred died in 1965 but Elizabeth lived until 1983.