Biography

Alexander Cameron spent his school years on the Isle of Skye. In summer he walked or was piggy-backed 10 miles to school, and in winter he boarded with the Dominie (teacher).

Little is known of his ancestors. His parents were Angus and Mary (nee McKinnon) Cameron, his mother dying while he was still young.

Back in Glasgow he trained as a lithographer, and then with his father joined a considerable emigration of the time to the new colonies.

Arriving in Melbourne, he was employed by the firm of Fergusson and Mitchell. His father became a grocer. In Melbourne Alexander was married to Elizabeth Taylor on 19 July, 1862, in the manse of the Scots Church.

Alexander was sent to Dunedin about 1862 by his employers to bring over machinery to start a branch of the business there, and then was asked to stay on as a factory manager. He and Joseph Longhurst Gregory had both been employed by the firm of Fergusson and Mitchell in Melbourne. After establishing a Dunedin branch, the firm became the leading general printers in the nineteenth century Dunedin. (This business was taken over by the well known Whitcomb and Tombs Ltd.)

Ref: Gregory’s – Camerons Printers to Dunedin. Compiled by Nevill Wilson and Edgar Gregory fom notes and material assembled by Elizabeth Gregory.