LOCHIEL ROSS

Another property near Ross, Lochiel, is home to Valerie le Maitre (Cameron, Clyde ’57) and her geologist husband Roger. Valerie’s grandfather, Eustace Cameron, purchased the property in 1905 from the Kermode family, which had owned it since 1824 and renamed it Lochiel after Cameron of Lochiel, the head of the Scottish Cameron clan. Valerie has lived there on and off since 1947, returning permanently in 1995 to assist her father Sir John Cameron (M’30), a noted pastoralist and chancellor of the University of Tasmania, with the management of the property. She took ownership in 1998 upon Sir John’s death and has since built the property up to almost 9,000 acres, running 5,000 breeding ewes and 250 breeding cows, and conserving areas of the property with important flora and fauna.

Max Cameron (P’76) and his wife Helen Baillie came to Wesley Dale at Chudleigh comparatively recently, in the 1990s, having bought out Max’s three aunts who had inherited the property from their father, Major Ralph Cameron (P’36). There is a further OGG connection with the Reed family, who owned the property from the 1820s before it was sold to the Camerons in 1956. John Reed (M’21), grandson of the original owner Henry Reed, grew up at Wesley Dale, and used the proceeds from its sale to build the modernist residence in Heidelberg, Victoria, that became the Heide Museum of Modern Art. Another of Henry Reed’s grandsons was Sir Hudson Fysh (GGS’05), the founder of Qantas. Over the past two decades, Max and Helen have painstakingly restored the homestead and its outbuildings, created a garden of note, and built up a substantial flock of breeding ewes and dairy heifers.

The connection of many of the families with Geelong Grammar School is a reminder of the School’s deep ties to Australia’s rural and pastoral industries, and to our built heritage. In their care for these places, a sense of custodianship, rather than ownership, is evident. Conservation and sustainable practices are in action at many of the properties. The shadow of a turbulent past is acknowledged – as Piers Dumaresq says “We must never forget the tragedy that befell the Indigenous people of Tasmania. Likewise, we must not ignore the achievements of the early colonists and their part in shaping the landscape and society of modern Australia. Our role as the current custodians is to tend to the heritage of all our shared histories”. Great Properties of Tasmania is a delightful and heart-warming insight into the families charged with this responsibility.