Richard Hind CAMBAGE (1859

Richard Hind CAMBAGE (1859 - 1928)

Surveyor, botanist

Children	Self + Spouses	Parents	Grandparents	Greatgrandparents
	Richard Hind CAMBAGE (1859 - 1928) + Fanny SKILLMAN	John Fisher CAMBAGE (1815 - 1896)



		Emma Ann SMART JONES (1831 - 1916)	William John SMART (1802 - 1882)

			Mary Ann JONES (1807 - 1883)

b. 07 Nov 1859 at Milton, ACT, Australia

m. 11 Jul 1881 Fanny SKILLMAN at Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

d. 28 Nov 1928 at Burwood, New South Wales, Australia aged 69

Near Relatives of Richard Hind CAMBAGE (1859 - 1928)
Relationship	Person	Born	Birth Place	Died	Death Place	Age
Grandfather	William John SMART	1802	Manchester, Lancashire, England	abt 1882		80
Grandmother	Mary Ann JONES	1807	Cowpasture, New South Wales, Australia	1883	Gundagai, New South Wales, Australia	76

Father	John Fisher CAMBAGE	1815		1896		81
Mother	Emma Ann SMART JONES	1831	Sydney, New South Wales, Australia	1916	Ulladulla, New South Wales, Australia	85

Self	Richard Hind CAMBAGE	07 Nov 1859	Milton, ACT, Australia	28 Nov 1928	Burwood, New South Wales, Australia	69

Wife	Fanny SKILLMAN

Aunt	Harriet SMART	1832	Sydney, New South Wales, Australia	1834	Sydney, New South Wales, Australia	2
Aunt	Harriet SMART	1834	Sydney, New South Wales, Australia	1906	Granville, New South Wales, Australia	72
Uncle	Henry HUGHES	1845		1870		25
Uncle	Edward GREEN
Aunt	Elizabeth SMART	11 Dec 1839	Sydney, New South Wales, Australia	12 Oct 1926	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	86
Uncle	John Thomas HELY	15 Sep 1833	Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia	02 Jun 1914	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	80
Aunt	Mary Ann SMART	1842	Sydney, New South Wales, Australia	1852	Gundagai, New South Wales, Australia	10
Uncle	William Robert SMART	1845	Goulburn, New South Wales, Australia	1898	Gundagai, New South Wales, Australia	53
Aunt	Deborah SMART	1847	Gunning, New South Wales, Australia	1934	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	87
Uncle	Thomas Henry Lawson ROBINSON	1834	Essex, England	1914	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	80
Uncle	Isaac SMART	1849	Yass, New South Wales, Australia	1933	Gundagai, New South Wales, Australia	84
Uncle	Joseph SMART	1854	Gunning, New South Wales, Australia	1926	Gundagai, New South Wales, Australia	72
Uncle	Henry SMART	1858	Gundagai, New South Wales, Australia	1858	Gundagai, New South Wales, Australia	0

Cousin	Emma HUGHES	1867	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	21 Apr 1960	Henty, New South Wales, Australia	93
Cousin	Elizabeth Hannah HELY	11 Apr 1857	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	29 Dec 1911	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	54
Cousin	John HELY	31 Jan 1859	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia
Cousin	John Thomas HELY	13 Jul 1860	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	19 Sep 1942	Croydon, New South Wales, Australia	82
Cousin	Edward HELY	08 Aug 1862	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia		Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Cousin	Alfred Frank HELY	15 Sep 1865	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	1954	Sydney, New South Wales, Australia	89
Cousin	Mary Anne HELY	28 Feb 1868	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	19 Jun 1935	Double Bay, New South Wales, Australia	67
Cousin	Eliza Emily HELY	11 Jul 1870	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	1946	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	76
Cousin	William Henry HELY	15 Mar 1873	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	1881	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	8
Cousin	Martha Ada HELY	04 Apr 1876	Yarragundy, New South Wales, Australia	abt 1913		37
Cousin	Prosper Frederick HELY	10 Jan 1879	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	1946	Rockdale, New South Wales, Australia	67
Cousin	Amelia Jane HELY	29 Dec 1882	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	1945	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	63
Cousin	Henry ROBINSON	1864	Gundagai, New South Wales, Australia	1938	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	74
Cousin	William ROBINSON	1866	Gundagai, New South Wales, Australia	1948	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	82
Cousin	Emma ROBINSON	1868	Tumut, New South Wales, Australia	1964	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	96
Cousin	Thomas ROBINSON	1871	Tumut, New South Wales, Australia	1939	Perth, Western Australia, Australia	68
Cousin	Mary ROBINSON	1874	Tumut, New South Wales, Australia		Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Cousin	Frederick ROBINSON	1876	Tumut, New South Wales, Australia	1948	Perth, Western Australia, Australia	72
Cousin	George ROBINSON	1880	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia		Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Cousin	Jane ROBINSON	1881	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia		Castle Hill, New South Wales, Australia
Cousin	Eleanor ROBINSON	1884	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	1960	Woollahra, New South Wales, Australia	76
Cousin	Alice May ROBINSON	1887	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	1969	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	82
Cousin	Constance Eileen ROBINSON	1890	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia		Kyneton, Victoria, Australia
Cousin	Gladys Lilian ROBINSON	1894	Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia	1947	Sydney, New South Wales, Australia	53

Events in Richard Hind CAMBAGE (1859 - 1928)'s life
Date	Age	Event	Place	Notes	Src
07 Nov 1859		Richard Hind CAMBAGE was born	Milton, ACT, Australia
11 Jul 1881	21	Married Fanny SKILLMAN	Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
1896	37	Death of father John Fisher CAMBAGE (aged 81)
1916	57	Death of mother Emma Ann SMART JONES (aged 85)	Ulladulla, New South Wales, Australia		71
28 Nov 1928	69	Richard Hind CAMBAGE died	Burwood, New South Wales, Australia

Personal Notes:

Acacia cambagei and Eucalyptus cambageana were named after him

Richard Hind Cambage (1859-1928), surveyor and botanist, was born on 7 November 1859 at Applegarth near Milton, New South Wales, second son of Yorkshire-born John (Fisher) Cambage, blacksmith and later farmer, and his second wife Emma Ann, née Jones. His father had reached Sydney on 5 July 1835 in the Marquis of Huntley, sentenced to seven years for housebreaking. Richard was educated at the Ulladulla Public School, was a pupil-teacher there and at 18 began training as a surveyor; in 1880 he helped to survey National Park. On 11 July 1881 at the Elizabeth Street registry office, Sydney, he married Fanny Skillman (d.1897), daughter of the headteacher at Ulladulla.

Licensed as a surveyor in June 1882, Cambage became a draftsman in the Department of Lands and on 16 February 1885 transferred to the Department of Mines as a mining surveyor. He covered much of the colony on his field trips and became expert in bushcraft, with 'an intuitive sense of direction', but his professional duties became increasingly concentrated on coalmining. In 1900 he carried out a difficult and dangerous survey of abandoned Newcastle workings running under the harbour and sea-bed. While investigating the old Balmain tunnels in Sydney he managed the remarkable feat of transferring his azimuth from the surface to a point 2920 ft (890 m) below sea-level in a single operation. Promoted chief mining surveyor in 1902, he investigated the site of an explosion in the Mount Kembla mine which had killed 95 men: his evidence to the royal commission on the disaster led to the reversal of the coroner's verdict that the miners had died of carbon-monoxide poisoning.

Cambage was a member of the board of examiners for licensed surveyors in 1903-18, and a foundation fellow of the Institution of Surveyors, New South Wales, of which he was president in 1907-09; he also lectured on surveying at Sydney Technical College in 1909-15. On 1 January 1916 he became under-secretary and warden of the Department of Mines and from next March was superintendent of explosives. He also chaired several boards in the public service.

A keen childhood interest in plants, birds and animals of his native district, where there were pockets of sub-tropical rainforest, blossomed during his years in the field. He made plant collections in 1880-90 for Dr William Woolls who gave him botanical lessons, and his observations formed the basis of two significant contributions to Australian botanical study. Cambage studied systematically the relationship of various Australian genera to their environment, and particularly the importance of the chemical composition of the parent rocks in the distribution of Eucalyptus species. If neither completely original nor definitive, his work in this area was remarkably perceptive. He also made a sophisticated analysis of the physiology and morphology of the widely varied Australian species of the genus Acacia, which involved years of experiment with seedlings in his garden and greenhouse. He published extensively in the journals of the local Royal and Linnean societies, often with his friend J. H. Maiden. Acacia cambagei, the 'gidgea' of the Darling River, and Eucalyptus cambageana, the 'Coowarra Box', were named after him.

A fellow of the Linnean Society of London from 1904, Cambage was very active in many local learned societies and was 'a renowned peacemaker'. He was a council-member of the local Linnean Society from 1906 (president in 1924), honorary secretary of the Royal Society of New South Wales in 1914-22 and 1925-28 (president in 1912 and 1923), president of the Wild Life Preservation Society of Australia in 1913 and of the State branch of the Australian Forest League in 1928, a council-member of the Australian Wattle League from 1909, and an elective trustee of the Australian Museum, Sydney, from 1925. As founding honorary secretary of the Australian National Research Council in 1919-26, he organized the Second Pan Pacific Science Congress held in Melbourne and Sydney in 1923, and as president in 1926-28 he represented the Commonwealth at the third congress held in Japan in 1926. He attended the conference on reorganization of the Commonwealth Institute of Science and Industry in 1925. In 1928 he presided over the Hobart meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science. Cambage was also a foundation member in 1901 of the (Royal) Australian Historical Society and president in 1924. He enjoyed tracing the actual paths followed by some of the early explorers, including Barrallier's attempt to cross the Blue Mountains, which he described in papers for the society.

Cambage retired from the public service at the end of 1924 and next year was appointed C.B.E. He was an active Freemason, holding high office in the local lodges, and a keen follower of Test and Sheffield Shield cricket. On 28 November 1928 he died suddenly with angina pectoris at his Burwood home, and was buried in the Anglican section of Rookwood cemetery. He was survived by two daughters and two sons who had both served in World War I.

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