John Cameron, Lord Cameron

For other people named Lord Cameron, see Lord Cameron (disambiguation).

John Cameron, Lord Cameron, KT, DSC, PRSE, FBA (8 February 1900, London – 30 May 1996, Edinburgh) was a Scottish judge and President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh from 1973 to 1976.

Life

Insignia of a Knight of the Order of the Thistle, which Lord Cameron became in 1978

Ullapool, Mill Street Old Burial Ground: Grave of Lord Cameron KT DSC

Cameron was born in London, the son of John Cameron, a solicitor from Edinburgh. He attended Edinburgh Academy from 1910–17. He then studied Law at Edinburgh University. This was interrupted by the First World War during which he served as a midshipman in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He resumed his studies after the war and qualified as an advocate in 1924. In 1936 he rose to be King's Counsel. In the Second World War he returned to the RNVR, this time as a lieutenant-commander, and participated both in the evacuation at Dunkirk and the D-Day landings.

In 1945 he was made Sheriff of Inverness and served in this role until 1948. He returned to Edinburgh in 1948 to serve as Dean of the Faculty of Advocates. He was knighted in 1954 and elected a Senator of the College of Justice on 5 July 1955. All Senators of the College (which includes the Supreme Courts of Scotland) have the honorific, The Honourable, and use the title Lord or Lady along with a surname or a territorial name. Lord Cameron continued as Senator of the College of Justice until 1988. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1949. He became their Vice-President in 1970 and President in 1973. Lord Cameron, who had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross as a naval officer, was also appointed a Knight of the Order of the Thistle in 1978.

He died in Edinburgh on 30 May 1996, aged 96.

Family

He married twice, firstly in 1927 to Eileen Dorothea Burrell, then following her death in 1943 he remarried in 1944 to Iris Shepherd. His son is Kenneth Cameron, Baron Cameron of Lochbroom, FRSE, who served as Lord Advocate from 1984 to 1989.

Work

In 1969 Lord Cameron undertook, at the request of the British Government, an inquiry into the civil unrest that had broken out in Northern Ireland. Cameron determined that

"[c]ertain at least of those who were prominent in the Association had objects far beyond the 'reformist' character of the majority of Civil Rights Association demands, and undoubtedly regarded the Association as a stalking-horse for achievement of other and more radical and in some cases revolutionary objects, in particular abolition of the border, unification of Ireland outside the United Kingdom and the setting up of an all-Ireland Workers' Socialist Republic."