John Cameron (1857-1891)
John Cameron (1857-1891)
1892 Obituary [1]
JOHN CAMERON, son of Mr. John Cameron, of Elgin, N.B., was born on the 22nd of December, 1857. When little more than seventeen he was articled for five years to Mr. H. M. S. Mackay, of Elgin, and shortly after the expiration of his time entered, in June, 1880, the office of Mr. Hugh J. Mackenzie, County Road Surveyor of Elginshire. There he assisted in the preparation of schemes for new waterworks, roads, bridges, and buildings, was Resident Engineer on the Grantown Waterworks, and for sometime acted for Mr. Mackenzie as County Road Surveyor.
In November, 1882, he became an Assistant to Mr. John Strain, of Glasgow, for whom he was chiefly employed on railway-surveys. In the following February Mr. Cameron obtained the appointment of Engineer to Messrs. Marillier and Edwards, Government contractors, of Calcutta. That post he held for the eight years of his stay in India, during which time he was charged with the carrying out and supervision of many important public works, such as the Burdwan water-supply, completed in December, 1884, the building of a new palace for the Maharajah of Cooch-Behar, and the Kidderpore Dock, Calcutta. The last work upon which he was engaged was the erection of a complex and extensive system of water-supply for the city of Agra in the North West Provinces. So successfully did he carry this out that he was offered the post of Engineer to the Corporation of Agra, but he refused that and other appointments in order to remain with Messrs. Marillier and Edwards, with whom he had long been on terms of mutual confidence and esteem.
Mr. Cameron returned home in May, 1891. From deference to the interests of his employers he had remained at his post until the completion of the Agra Waterworks, but continuous out-door work in the climate of India had undermined his constitution. He gradually became weaker, and died at Elgin on the1st of September following. He had given promise of much ability as an Engineer, which, with the devotion to work he had always shown, should have resulted in a career of considerable success. Mr. Cameron was elected an Associate Member of the Institution on the 15th of May, 1888