William Justin Beauchamp CAMERON, "The Wild Irishman", 1845-1928

William Justin Beauchamp Cameron (known as Beauchamp Cameron) was born at "Aughamore" in Carrick on Shannon, County Leitrim, Ireland, in 1845, the third son of Allan John Russell Bedford Cameron and Helen (nee Cox). His father had been County Inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary, but had to retire following an accident, and the family faced hard times.

Family reminiscences in Margaret Reeves's book "Strange Bird on the Lagoon" state that Beauchamp was sent to Australia to join his Cox uncles at the age of fourteen, that he almost immediately fell out with them and knocked around by himself for some time, before being offered an opportunity to join a merchant company in Batavia, Java, where he remained for ten years. Research on the Coxes, however, suggests that this is incorrect. Perhaps Beauchamp himself, or later generations, developed this story to distance him from violent behaviour and a family tragedy involving one of his Cox uncles and a cousin.

Shipping records indicate that Beauchamp arrived in Melbourne in 1860, almost certainly to join his uncle Dillon Cox who was working there as a livery stable keeper and horse dealer. Dillon married in Melbourne in 1861, and shortly thereafter left for Batavia, Java, to take up a position involving the import and export of horses. It is extremely likely that Beauchamp went with him and worked with him. During their time in Java, three brothers and two sisters of Beauchamp came from Ireland to join them, the sisters finding husbands there.

In 1871 the Cox/Cameron party returned to Australia. Dillon Cox took up a property near Palmerston, now Darwin, where he proposed to breed horses and cattle. It was only after this, in 1873, that Dillon's brother Price arrived to join him. Excerpts from Beauchamp's diary show that he was still involved with the Coxes in 1873, when he accompanied Price part of the way on his trip to take horses to the property at Palmerston. They parted amicably before the Queensland border was crossed, as Beauchamp had decided to try his luck in Queensland. It was after this that tragedy befell the Coxes. Dillon Cox was savagely beaten by a nephew at his property in 1874, and died a few weeks later, and Price Cox and his family, together with a brother of Beauchamp, were drowned in the wreck of the "Gothenburg" off Bowen in 1875.

A chance meeting with the young son of an unrelated Cameron family in the Barcaldine district led Beauchamp to his future wife. He came upon eleven year old Willie Cameron, who had been sent on some errand with a horse and dray. The child's father had died only a few weeks before, the dray horse had wandered off during the night, and Willie was suffering a severe toothache, so was very distressed. Beauchamp located the missing horse and drove the little boy home, completing his kindly act by pulling out the offending tooth with a pair of stick pliers. While there, he was charmed by Willie's sixteen year old sister, Elizabeth Patricia. They fell deeply in love, and after a long courtship, they were married at "Green Hills" station in 1881. He was 35, and his bride was 24. They honeymooned in Java.

Beauchamp and Elizabeth had eight children: Donald, Margaret (Meta), Allan, Kenny, Ewen (Matey), Helen, Isabella and Billy. All of them except Meta (who married and went to New Zealand) were graziers or farmers for at least part of their lives.

Soon after Beauchamp's return to Queensland, the Palmer River gold rush began. This was to prove a bonanza for him. After a big wet season and major flooding, the miners were on the point of starvation when a drover arrived with a mob of cattle, brought in by an overland route through previously unexplored country. It was Beauchamp. When the local butcher offered him a pitifully small price for the cattle, Beauchamp set up as a butcher, selling the meat direct to the miners. The butcher came to his senses and offered Beauchamp the proper price, upon which he sold him the cattle and went back for more.

Beauchamp made a lot of money droving cattle to the Palmer, and was able to buy a cattle station, "Uanda", in partnership with James Tolsen. This enabled him to ask for Elizabeth's hand in marriage, which was eventually granted despite the opposition of her eldest brother John, who thought she could make a better match. He had disdainfully christened Beauchamp "the wild Irishman", a name which he wore with pride.

Following various financial vicissitudes, Beauchamp selected another block near Richmond, which he named "Donalken" after his three sons, Donald, Allan and Kenneth. He began to establish it, and found an excellent artesian flow. However, his brother-in-law John Cameron persuaded him to sell out to him, and Beauchamp returned to the Darling Downs, buying a large farm which they named "Aughamore" (after the family property in Ireland), close to Toowoomba. Here, the family dairy farmed for over twenty years.

But the West was in their blood, and in 1924 Beauchamp's sons Matey and Billy and daughter Helen took up a block known as Lot 13, west of Quilpie. When they were reasonably well-established, Beauchamp and Elizabeth went out to join them. But by that time the old man was suffering from dementia. He died there in 1928, and is buried in a beautiful spot, atop a ridge with a grassy expanse sloping down to a creek. It is where he would have wanted to be buried, in his beloved Outback.

Beauchamp was apparently an impulsive, quick-tempered, sometimes stubborn man, but a hard-working and completely honest one. He had been brought up in the old gentleman's code of honour, and lived by it all his life. He believed that a given word and a handshake were all that was needed between decent men, and saw no need for legal documents. When he died, six sovereigns he had found many years before were still lying in his desk awaiting a claimant.

Elizabeth survived him by many years, dying in 1951 at the age of 96. She is buried in the Drayton and Toowoomba cemetery.

(This account, compiled by Marie Cameron, draws on material taken from the books "A Strange Bird on the Lagoon", by Margaret Reeves, "Fido and Friends" by Daniel Hart, "Frontier Justice" by Tony Roberts, and excerpts from the "Northern Territory Times".)