FORGOTTEN

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 334, 22 September 1932, Page 3

FORGOTTEN

AUSTRALIAN BARONET LIVING IN OLD MEN'S HOME. DROPPED BY FRIENDS. Perth, Saturday The only living Australian-born baronet, Sir Alexander CockburnCambell, is now an inmate of the Old Men's Home at Claremont. The son of a former President of the Legislative Council of W. A., Sir Alexander has lived a hard, pioneering life of the north-west for more than 40 years and, now, fortune having deserted him, he joins so many other pluclcy old pioneers in this retreat. Sir Alexander was born at Albany 60 years ago, and went to the NorthWest at the age of 20. i He did not live in luxury in an elaborate station home, for much of the time he was only a drover, living a hard life on the road and in camp. | In 1926 his wife died in pathetic circumstances. Lady Cockburn Campbell becanie ' seriously ill when a child was expected. She and her husband were. then on Waterloo station, 164 miles } from a doctor. Before help could I reach her over the rough, tortuous ; tracks of the north, she died. Dropped Cold. The tragedy was strongly played ' up in the House of Representatives , by Mr. A. E. Green as an argument for the Wyndham air service, and this, no doubt, weighed largely in its subseuuent inauguration. With his eyesight rapidly failing and with cho money to secure expert , treatment, Sir Alexander was com- | pelled to forsake his job in the North and come to Perth. His arrival was chronicled in the social columns of the Press, and then he was dropped, cold. Even a baronet does not continue to be a social luminary once he enters the portals of an aged men's retreat, nor do his children revel in the social limelight when they are at the Parkerville children's home. If he has his way, Sir Alexander will not stay there any longer than he can help. If the treatment for his eyes can be successfully put through at the Home, he may leave and go back to his beloved North.