Charles Hay Cameron (11 February 1795 – 8 May 1880) was a British jurist. He was married to the photographer

Julia Margaret Cameron Julia Margaret Cameron (''née'' Pattle; 11 June 1815 – 26 January 1879) was a British photographer who is considered one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century. She is known for her soft-focus close-ups of famous Victorian m ...

Personal life

Cameron was the son of Charles Cameron, governor of the

Bahama Islands The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the arch ...

, by Lady Margaret Hay, daughter of

James Hay, 15th Earl of Erroll James Hay, 15th Earl of Erroll (20 April 1726 – 3 July 1778) styled Lord Boyd from 1728 to 1746, was a Scottish nobleman and the son of William Boyd, 4th Earl of Kilmarnock. Early life He was born James Boyd at Falkirk on 20 April 1726. James ...

. His grandfather, Donald Cameron, was the younger son of Dr.

Archibald Cameron of Locheil Archibald Cameron of Lochiel (1707 – 7 June 1753) was a Scottish physician and a prominent leader in the Jacobite rising of 1745. The personal physician of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, On 7 June 1753, at Tyburn, he was the last Jacobite to ...

, who had been executed in London in 1753. Charles Hay Cameron erected a monument to his great-grandfather in the

Savoy Chapel The King's Chapel of St John the Baptist in the Precinct of the Savoy, also known as the King's Chapel of the Savoy, is a church in the City of Westminster, London. Facing it are 111 Strand, the Savoy Hotel, the Institution of Engineering and Te ...

. It was damaged by a fire in 1864, when Charles Lloyd Norman, Cameron's son-in-law, replaced it by a painted window. Cameron was intimate with many prominent men of his day, in particular

Sir Henry Taylor Sir Henry Taylor (18 October 1800 – 27 March 1886) was an English dramatist and poet, Colonial Office official, and man of letters. Early life Henry Taylor was born on 18 October 1800 in Bishop Middleham. He was the third son of George T ...

Alfred Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...

, and

Henry Thoby Prinsep Henry Thoby Prinsep (15 July 1793 – 11 February 1878) was an English official of the Indian Civil Service, and historian of India. In later life he entered politics, and was a significant figure of the cultural circles of London. Early life Pr ...

. In 1838 he married Julia Margaret Pattle, the photographer who came to be known as

. In all, the Camerons raised 11 children, five of their own, five orphaned children of relatives, and an Irish girl named Mary Ryan whom they found begging on Putney Heath and whom Julia used as a model in her photographs. Their daughter Julia (died 1873) was married to Charles Lloyd Norman and mother of diplomat Herman Norman.

Barrister

Cameron was called to the bar at

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...

in 1830. He was a disciple of

Jeremy Bentham Jeremy Bentham (; 15 February 1748 Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S._4_February_1747.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 4 February 1747">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.htm ...

. He was employed upon various commissions. His report upon "judicial establishments and procedure in Ceylon", the result of his participation in a commission with Colonel Colebrooke, is dated 31 January 1832. He was also a commissioner for inquiring into charities, and prepared a report upon the operation of the

poor law In English and British history, poor relief refers to government and ecclesiastical action to relieve poverty. Over the centuries, various authorities have needed to decide whose poverty deserves relief and also who should bear the cost of hel ...

s in April 1833.

India

By the act of 1833 a fourth member was added to the Supreme Council of India (previously the Council of Bengal), and a law commission was constituted, one member of which was to be appointed from England. Cameron was the first member so appointed, and went to India in the beginning of 1835. In 1843 he was appointed fourth member of council, and became president of the Council of Education for Bengal, of which he had been a member from his arrival in India. Cameron took an important part in the work of codification begun by Macaulay, and was Macaulay's chief adviser and co-operator in the preparation of the penal code ( Trevelyan, Macaulay, i. 427. 443, 463). He took a great interest in the introduction of English education among the natives of India. A public meeting of natives was held at

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

on 22 February 1848, upon his departure for England, to thank him for his exertions, and request him to sit for his portrait. His views were explained in an "Address to Parliament on the duties of Great Britain to India in respect of the education of the natives and their official employment, by C. H. Cameron" (1863), in which he advocated a more liberal treatment of the Indian population.

Return to England

Cameron took no further part in active life after his return to England. He lived successively in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

Putney Putney () is a district of southwest London, England, in the London Borough of Wandsworth, southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. History Putney is an ancient paris ...

, and at

Freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include ...

, in the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the largest and second-most populous island of England. Referred to as 'The Island' by residents, the Isle of ...

Visit to Sri Lanka

In 1875, he went to

Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

, where his sons were established. After a visit to England in 1878, he died in Ceylon on 8 May 1880.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cameron, Charles Hay 1795 births 1880 deaths 19th-century jurists Members of Lincoln's Inn British people in colonial India Committee members of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge