Cameron, Sir Roderick William

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: R. C. MacGillivray, “CAMERON, Sir RODERICK WILLIAM,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 12, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/cameron_roderick_william_12E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Businessman, lobbyist, and exhibition commissioner; b. 25 July 1823 in Glengarry County, Upper Canada, son of Duncan Cameron and Margaret McLeod; m. first 6 Aug. 1845 Mary Ann Cumming (d. 1858); m. secondly 1861 Anne Fleming Leavenworth (d. 1879), and they had two sons and five daughters; d. 19 Oct. 1900 in London, England.
    • In 1852, when the Australian gold-rush was exciting the North American public, Cameron chartered a ship to take passengers and supplies from New York to Australia. He followed this up with 17 other ships in a period of 26 months, consolidating his activities in a shipping company known as the Australian Pioneer Line. After William Augustus Street became his partner in 1870, the name was changed to R. W. Cameron and Company, under which name the firm still operates. Cameron suffered financial reverses in New York before and a few years after his entry into shipping, but otherwise his commercial career there appears to have been one of remarkably uninterrupted success. His line weathered the financial crisis of 1857, the Civil War, and the passing of the clipper age. Concentrating on trade between New York and Australia, with links to New Zealand and England, the firm also traded in Asia and elsewhere. Cargo included American kerosene and farm machinery as well as Australian wool. After its early years, the company purchased ships as well as chartering them, but gave up ship-owning about the end of the 19th century.
    • Cameron was recommended by the Canadian government in 1882 for a knighthood. The British authorities at first hesitated, but Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt, Canada’s recently retired high commissioner in London, was able to inform Sir John A. Macdonald on 11 June 1883 that he had got “our friend” Cameron his knighthood, and the honour was awarded on 16 June. The official reason for it was Cameron’s service to Canada as an exhibition commissioner, but a more realistic, if less specific, explanation is that the knighthood represented in a general way the amount of credit Cameron had managed to accumulate with the Canadian government. For one thing, he had provided generous hospitality in New York to visiting Canadians and Australians at the time of the Philadelphia exhibition.
  • Son of Proven United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=1155
  • Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/189138674/roderick_william-cameron