People Australia

Clyde Cameron, Metro Studios, c.1952

National Library of Australia, 50038505

Clyde Robert Cameron (1913-2008) shearer, trade union official and parliamentarian 

Birth: 11 February 1913 at Murray Bridge, South Australia, son of native-born parents Robert Cameron (1868-1957), shearer, and Adelaide (Del), née Hilder (1887-1948). Marriages: (1) 16 September 1939 at the manse, Semaphore, to native-born Helen Herbert Moyle, known as Ruby Helen ('Cherie') Krahe (b.1913), They had two sons and one daughter. The marriage ended in divorce. (2) 1967 to Doris Maude Bradbury (1919-2008), a machinist, born at Blackburn, Lancashire, England. Death: 14 March 2008 at Tennyson, Adelaide. 

• Educated at Gawler High School. From age of 14 worked as rouseabout then shearer in every Australian state and in New Zealand. Ruled unfit to serve in World War II.
• Australian Workers’ Union member; organiser in 1939 and federal vice-president from 1941 to 1950, acquiring the nickname ‘Shithouse’ for focus on latrine inspections. AWU State secretary 1941-1950, industrial advocate 1943-1948.
• Joined the Australian Labor Party about 1928. SA State president from 1946 to 1948; member of state and federal party executive.
• Member of the House of Representatives for Hindmarsh from 1949 to 1980. Minister for Labour 1972-1974; Minister for Labour and Immigration 1974-1975; demoted to portfolio of Science and Consumer Affairs 1975.
• Following retirement in 1980 became energetic if less than self-effacing labour historian and prolific oral historian.
• Appointed Officer of the Order of Australia in 1982. 

Sources
Joan Rydon (ed), A biographical register of the Commonwealth Parliament 1901-1972 (ANU Press, 1975); Jim Moss, Sound of trumpets: history of the labour movement in South Australia (Adelaide, 1985); Labor Year Book, 1973; Clyde Cameron, The Cameron Dairies, (Sydney, 1990); Bill Guy, A Life on the Left, (Adelaide, 1999;) Sydney Morning Herald, 25 March 2008, p 14.