As per below, thank you very much for the email Louise. Since condolences to Colonel Sir
Donald Cameron of Lochiel family, friends and fellow clan members.
http://www.clan-cameron.org/
Kindest regards, Scott Cameron - Guelph, Ontario, Canada
www.tireegathering.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Scott,
Condolences on the passing of your Chief.
I have just posted an item with the obit / article to the Isle of Tiree Rootsweb list.
You should see it come through soon. If you would also like to post something to the
Gathering List, I am sending you an item you can pass on. Or you can use it to make up
your own message, if you like. See following email.
Louise
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Cameron 26th Chief 1910-2004: Colonel Sir Donald Cameron of Lochiel
Dear Listers,
Since there are quite a few Camerons attending the Tiree Gathering in Guelph, this article
will be of interest to many on this List. Even though the article is not about Tiree, and
even if you're not a Cameron, it is interesting reading as a bird's eye view of
one Clan in Scottish history, especially the prophecy, the bell tolling, and the means to
economic success including why Sir Donald, as the eldest son of the 25th Chief, was not
born at the Clan seat of Achnacarry.
Condolences to all Camerons,
Louise MacDougall
Vancouver Island, BC Canada
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leader of Clan Cameron Dies: Wednesday, May 26, 2004 93-year-old Colonel Sir Donald
Hamish Cameron of Lochiel, the 26th chief and captain of Clan Cameron died peacefully at
the clan's spiritual headquarters of Achnacarry Castle, near Fort William. He is
survived by his wife, four children, 14 grandchildren and four great grandchildren. Sir
Donald, who was
known simply as Lochiel, was made a Knight of the Thistle by the Queen in 1973. He was
commissioned into the Lovat Scouts in 1929 and served with them during WW2, rising to the
rank of major. He was Lord Lieutenant of Inverness-shire from 1971-85.
"Scottish Snippets" 29 May 2004 Number 372
http://www.rampantscotland.com/letter.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Colonel Sir Donald Cameron of Lochiel, KT
(Filed: 29/05/2004) © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004
http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/05/29/d...
Colonel Sir Donald Cameron of Lochiel, KT, who died on Wednesday aged 93, was the 26th
Chief of Clan Cameron and heir to one of the proudest lineages in all Scotland.
The Clan Cameron, which takes its name from the Gaelic cam-shron or "crooked
hill", can trace itself back to medieval times. The first Chief found in historical
records is Domnhuill Dubh - "Black Donald" (the 11th Chief) - who in 1311 fought
as a vassal of the Lord of the Isles at Harlaw. Thereafter, Camerons distinguished
themselves at battles from Bannockburn to
Prestonpans, and none showed more fighting spirit than their leaders.
The 17th Chief, Sir Ewen Cameron, killed a soldier of the Cromwellian General Monck by
tearing out his throat with his teeth, and it was to Lochiel that Charles Edward Stuart
later looked when he landed in Scotland. Cameron men guarded the Prince on the night
before Culloden, and Lochiel's estates were among the first to be forfeited after the
rising failed; his youngest son was the last man to be executed as a Jacobite, in 1753,
after the Act of Indemnity.
The Chief himself, however, earned the name "Gentle Lochiel" for having spared
Glasgow when the Stuart army retreated north, and in gratitude thecitizenry decreed that
the bells of the Tolbooth should be rung whenever his descendants passed through the
city.
They were rung three times for Sir Donald who, though a chartered accountant by
profession, had also inherited a goodly measure of his forebears' martial prowess.
Having campaigned through the Second World War with the Lovat Scouts, he later commanded a
territorial battalion of the family regiment, the Cameron Highlanders, first raised in
1793 and substantially enlarged by his grandfather in 1914.
His principal concern, though, was the management of the Cameron estates, which by shrewd
husbandry he increased to 130,000 acres, the largest landholding in Britain of any
commoner. Cameron country is the wooded hills and glens around Fort William, north-west
Scotland, and a prophecy holds that the Camerons will keep their land as long as there is
snow on Ben Nevis.
In earlier times, there were hot disputes over ownership of the area around Loch Arkaig
between the Camerons and Clan Chattan. In 1396 King Robert II presided over a melee at
Perth between 30 champions of each side, at the end of which the last Cameron escaped with
his life by swimming the River Tay.
Sir Donald had no such problems with the neighbours, and the four pillars of agriculture,
stalking, forestry and holiday lets kept the estate profitable. Lochiel was one of very
few landowners to have greater holdings than those of his ancestor a century before.
He was also a most diligent Chief to his clan members, regularly travelling to gatherings
in countries such as Australia, where more than 2,000 Camerons came to meet him. Although
he thought such large convocations worked better abroad than in Scotland (where he felt
there was less interest in ancestry), he welcomed any Cameron who called at Achnacarry,
his seat at Spean Bridge, Inverness-shire, which stood beside the castle burned down by
the Duke of Cumberland in 1746.
In 1956 he hosted only the second great gathering of the clan there since the '45,
and in 1989 another to mark his golden wedding. He also converted a former post office on
the estate into the clan museum.
Lochiel was a man whose considerable charm was matched by his unflagging energy and his
high ideals of service to his clansmen and the people of Scotland. There was no finer
example of a Scottish laird, and in the red of his Cameron kilt he very much looked the
part as well as performing it.
Donald Hamish Cameron, the elder son of Sir Donald Cameron, 25th Chief and Captain of
Clan Cameron, was born on September 12 1910 at Buchanan Castle, Loch Lomond, the former
home of his mother, Lady Hermione, the second
daughter of the 5th Duke of Montrose. He was not born at Achnacarry as the castle had been
let for the grouse season.
Since 1800 the eldest son of every Lochiel has always been christened Donald. Both his
father and grandfather had married the daughters of dukes; his father was also the first
Knight of the Thistle not to be either a peer or a baronet.
The Younger Lochiel was educated at Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford, and came of age
in 1931. To mark this, the tenantry presented him with two gifts for the stalker: a Rigby
telescopic rifle and Ross monocular prism glasses.
In 1929 Cameron had joined the Lovat Scouts, and although he then trained as an
accountant, he kept up his military skills; and when war came he fought with the regiment,
notably in Italy. By 1945 he was a lieutenant-colonel. He was awarded the Territorial
Decoration in 1944.
He faithfully kept up his connection with the Army in the years after, and as well as
honouring his links with the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders (as they became) -
serving as Honorary Colonel of the 4/5th Battalion from 1958 to 1967 - he was also
Honorary Colonel of a territorial battalion of the Queen's Own Highlanders (the
amalgam of the Camerons and Seaforths) from 1967, and of a battalion of the 51st Highland
Volunteers.
He was appointed Colonel in 1957 and awarded a military OBE in 1954.
His father died in 1951, and the new Lochiel returned from London to live at Achnacarry
which, during the war, had been used as a commando training centre and had been badly
damaged by fire.
Once back in Scotland, he was soon offered a good number of part-time jobs in public
life. From 1959 to 1964 he was chairman of the Scottish Area of the British Railways
Board. He was also for many years a director of the Save & Prosper Group, of the Royal
Bank of Scotland, and of Scottish Widows, of which he was chairman from 1964 until 1967.
He was a Crown Estates Commissioner from 1957 to 1969; president of the Scottish
Landowners' Federation from 1979 to 1984; and Lord Lieutenant of the County of
Inverness from 1971 until 1985.
Lochiel was appointed CVO in 1970 and a Knight of the Thistle in 1973.
He married, in 1939, Margaret Gathorne-Hardy, a niece of the 3rd Earl of Cranbrook; they
had two sons and two daughters.
The new Clan Chief is the eldest son, Donald Angus Cameron, Younger of Lochiel, born in
1946.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------