People Australia

Robert (Bob) Cameron [senior] (1863-1932) miner and trade union official 

Birth: 1863 at Glasgow, Scotland, son of Robert Cameron, miner, and Margaret, née Phillips (c.1830-1932). Marriage: 13 January 1888 at Wallsend, New South Wales, to native-born Isabella (Isabel) Bower (1866-1936). They had three daughters and six sons.  Death: 20 September 1932 in hospital at Wallsend, Newcastle, NSW. Religion: Presbyterian. 

• An only child, he migrated to New South Wales about 1885 and worked in collieries at Minmi and Wallsend. After his father was killed in a mining accident his mother followed her son to Wallsend.
• Member, Wallsend miners Lodge for fourteen years; vice president during coal strike 1909-1910.
• Succeeded Peter Bowling as president, taking prominent part in negotiations that ended strike. “Gifted as a debater, with a style peculiar to himself”, he “fearlessly expressed his opinion”.
• Active in Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows; as NSW grandmaster laid foundation stone of Sydney headquarters 1921. Was secretary of MUIOOF No. 27 Prince of Wales Lodge.
• Other organisations in which he was interested included the Citizens’ Relief Committee, of which he was secretary, and the Wallsend and Plattsburg Caledonian Society. He was a sergeant in the EW (Wallsend) Company of the old 4th Regiment.
• Secretary and chief administrator of Wallsend Mining District Hospital from October 1921. In February 1932 he was viciously struck on the head with an iron bar by a masked robber in the hospital’s office.
• Cause of death: acute peritonitis and appendicitis, heart failure.

Sources
H. J. Gibbney and Ann G. Smith, A Biographical Register 1788-1939, vol 1 (Canberra, 1987).