Tag Archives: Nova Scotia

Australia, Australian Infantry, Canada, Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, history, illness, Lancashire, Nova Scotia, photography, Private, story, war, Wiltshire

Private Oscar Cameron

Leave a comment
Private Oscar Cameron

Born in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, in around 1876, the early life of Oscar Cameron is a challenge to piece together. He was one of four children to ship’s carpenter Christopher Cameron and his wife Alice.

Oscar appears to have followed his father in a sea-faring life, and his later army service records confirm that, by 1917, he was a ship’s officer. When the call came to serve the Empire, he took a discharge from his ship in Australia, and joined up.

Enlisting on 20th February 1917, Oscar’s service records show that he was 5ft 6.5ins (1.69m) tall, and weighed 128lbs (50.1kg). He had fair hair, blue eyes and a fresh complexion, with a tattoo on his right forearm and a vaccination scar on his left upper arm. His age was given as 36 years and 6 months, although he was, in fact 41 by this point.

Assigned to the 59th Battalion of the Australian Infantry, Private Cameron’s unit left from Sydney on board the HMAT A16. The two-month voyage was not uneventful: Oscar spent three days in hospital with an undeclared ailment, and also forfeited two days’ pay for being absent without leave for 34hrs during the ship’s layover in Cape Town, South Africa.

The 59th Battalion disembarked in Liverpool, Lancashire, on 16th September 1917. From there it made the journey to the ANZAC camps in Wiltshire, and this is where Oscar would have continued his training.

At the start of 1918, Private Cameron’s health was suffering again. He was admitted to the No. 3 New Zealand General Hospital in Codford, Wiltshire, suffering from nephritis. Ultimately, the condition was to prove fatal: Oscar passed away at 4:45pm on 24th January 1918, aged 40.

Thousands of miles from home, it wasn’t possible for the remains of Oscar Cameron to be taken back to Canada. Instead, he was laid to rest in the ANZAC extension to St Mary’s Churchyard in Codford, not far from the base where he had received treatment.

Bermuda, Cambridgeshire, Canada, Chaplain, Commonwealth War Graves, Great War, Hampshire, history, illness, Kent, London, Nova Scotia, photography, Royal Navy, story, Suffolk, war

Reverend Joseph Dathan

Leave a comment
Reverend Joseph Dathan

Much regret has been felt… at the death of Rev. JD Dathan MA, chaplain to the Royal Marines, at the age of 50 years. His death was due to pneumonia, caused by catching a chill while doing temporary duty… at the [Royal Naval Hospital, Chatham, Kent]. The eldest son of Captain JC Dathan RN, the deceased gentleman was educated at Christ’s Hospital and Cambridge, where he obtained the degree of MA. He entered the Royal Navy as a chaplain in 1896, and served on the China Station during the Boxer riots. For five years he was chaplain of Bermuda Dockyard and Hospital. He also served commissions in HMS Monmouth, Goliath and Russell. He was posted to the Royal Marine Barracks in July 1914, but on the outbreak of war he was appointed to HMS Formidable, and was transferred from the ship a week before she was lost. He was subsequently sent tot he Dardanelles for service in the Implacable at the first landing in April 1915. Later he joined the Italian Fleet, and was subsequently recalled to the Royal Marine Barracks. Three of the deceased officer’s brothers – Paymr.-in-Chief Ellis Dathan, Com. Hartley Dathan, and Eng.-Com. William Dathan – are serving in the Royal Navy.

[Naval & Military Record and Royal Dockyards Gazette: Wednesday 16th January 1918]

Joseph Duncan Dathan was born in 1866 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The second of seven children, his parents were Joseph and Emma Dathan.

By the time of the 1891 census, the Dathan family had moved back to Britain. Joseph Sr and Emma were living in Portsea, Hampshire, while the younger Joseph was studying at Christ’s Hospital. The next return, taken in 1901, found him having taken up a role as curate at St John’s Church in Ipswich, Suffolk. He was, by this point, living on Foxhall Road on the western edge of the town.

On 25th February 1904, Joseph married Alicia Cane. The daughter of a vicar, she lived in Ipswich, and the couple married in the local parish church. By this point, Joseph was based in Portsmouth, Hampshire, and this is where the young couple set up home. Alicia gave birth to their first child, John, that November. The couple’s second son, Joseph, was born in 1906 and their third, daughter Alicia, was born in Bermuda while the family were stationed out there with Reverend Dathan’s work.

Joseph’s connection to the navy continued much as the newspaper reported. He died from pneumonia on 7th January 1918: he was 51 years of age.

Reverend Joseph Duncan Dathan was laid to rest in the naval section of Woodlands Cemetery in Gillingham, Kent, a place he would have known well, given its proximity to the Royal Naval Dockyard in Chatham, Kent, where he had been based.