With the passing of Margaret Alison Cameron on 29 September, Australia lost an exceptional champion for birds and mentor to nature lovers. The many organisations she served and individuals she touched will reflect on her sage guidance and advice. She had just turned 86.
Margaret was born in Ipswich and grew up in country Queensland. She attended local schools, then the Anglican Girls’ School in Brisbane, before completing a BA (Hons) at Ipswich (University of Queensland). Her notable career as a librarian began in 1959, at the Public Library of Queensland. She then spent time in New York (via one of several grants to broaden her skills), followed by positions at university libraries in Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales. In 1977, she moved from Sydney to Geelong to become the foundation librarian at Deakin University. One of the anecdotes circulating since her death is that during her interview for the position Margaret was asked why she wanted to move Deakin, when she was already the head librarian at a university. She replied that Deakin was the closest university to Werribee Sewage Farm, the best bird study site in Australia. Needless to say, she got the job!
It wasn’t until the late 1960s in Adelaide that, inspired by Joan Paton’s adult education lectures on ornithology, Margaret became an active birdwatcher and conservationist. She joined BirdLife Australia (then Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union; RAOU) in 1969, was elected to its Council from 1983 to 1989 and served as President from 1986 to 1989. Her various other roles included Chair of the Victorian Group of the RAOU and Chair of the RAOU Library Committee 1980–1993—at the time the H.L. White Library was one of the finest ornithological collections in the nation.
During Margaret’s Presidency, the RAOU was transitioning from a union of volunteers to one staffed by professionals. The way forward had already been mapped and the priorities established, but implementation was another matter. During such periods of organisational change and growth, new structures and systems must be established and constantly tweaked to deal with changing circumstances. Margaret, outwardly calmly, steered the ship through these stormy waters. Mike Newman, then Vice-President, recalls:
With hindsight what was achieved during that era is staggering and one can only applaud Margaret’s ability to navigate chaos with seeming calm. On one occasion, however, she confided that I might have to Chair the next Council meeting as she was considering stepping down. Fortunately, she did not, and we should all be mindful of the magnitude of the task and its personal toll. RAOU’s survival and success is a tribute the power of Margaret’s positive leadership and ability to inspire a culture of goodwill. We operated on the smell of an oily rag, with the maximum annual deficit creeping alarming higher and continual mutterings about the need to sell the RAOU’s biggest asset: not Margaret but a set of Gould’s volumes. Fortunately, the value of the Goulds was appreciating more rapidly than the deficit, so the unthinkable act of Margaret, a librarian, having to sanction their sale, was avoided temporarily. The Council was the model of prudency, sleeping on the library floor to minimise costs of Council meetings. In her element, the President slept soundly.
During the same period, Margaret’s rare ability to grasp complex issues and cut through to broker a consensus was also put to good use in her role as a member of the Advisory Committee of the Australian Biological Resources Study from 1984 to 1991 and its Chair from 1987 to 1991. From 1986, she was also a member and Chair of the Research Advisory Committee to the Victorian Minister of Conservation, Forests and Lands and, from 1987 until the early 2000s, a member of the Council of the Museum of Victoria.
Seemingly tireless, she was also a keen member of the Wader Studies Group, attendee at campouts and congress, supporter of Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds and the Atlas, and a major and most capable and reliable contributor to bird surveys. Even the RAOU’s annual bird calendar received her full support, and she proved herself a sales person par to none. In 1985, when the now King Charles and Princess Diana visited the Rotamah Island Bird Observatory, they came by boat. Knowing Margaret’s zeal, her birding colleagues challenged her to sell calendars to the police guarding the boat. Margaret ascended the gangplank and was cordially received. The outcome was an offer to exchange calendars!
Margaret recognised that it was important to make people feel interested in and enthusiastic about birds because this encourages them to protect habitat and support conservation. It is hardly surprising that she was one of the founders of the online community, Birding-Aus. Nor is it surprising that as a librarian she nurtured the capture and documentation of knowledge of Australia’s natural history.
Margaret served as Pro Vice-Chancellor of Deakin University from 1986 to 1990, finally retiring in 1996. Along the way, she collected several well-deserved honours, including Fellow of the Library Association of Australia in 1987, Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 1990, ‘in recognition of service to library services, education and to ornithology’, and Fellow of Birdlife Australia in 1993, the organisation’s highest award. Later, awards included an Honorary Doctorate from Deakin University in 1999 and, that same year, the Natural History Medallion awarded by the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria ‘to the person judged to have made the most meritorious contribution to the understanding of Australian Natural History’.
Margaret was hardworking and dedicated to whatever she embraced, be it librarianship, birdwatching, NSW and Victoria ornithological societies, the RAOU or the Geelong community. Alongside her passion for birds, she was a fervid barracker for the Geelong Cats and an energetic contributor to the Geelong community in general. She was editor of The Geelong Naturalist from 1980 to 1987.
Margaret’s RAOU Fellow citation of 1993 extols ‘her enthusiasm and energy and her enquiring mind’ and describes her as ‘One of the best known ornithologists in Australia’. A long battle with dementia eventually slowed her involvement, and she died peacefully in Brisbane among her family. Few people can claim such a full, useful and engaged life.