Private Life
Cameron's personality remains a "shadowy figure": being "proud, aloof and difficult", he had a talent for alienating people. He did not participate in the social life of the English diaspora in Saint Petersburg; he had few Russian friends, did not speak Russian and was disliked for his attitude of "English superiority".
In 1784 Cameron married Catherine Bush, daughter of imperial gardener John Bush. They had a daughter, Mary, however, her birth has not been evidenced by church records. Mary Cameron, engaged to James Grange, left Russia in 1798. Grange returned to Russia in 1803, and, according to Anthony Cross, could have helped Cameron's career revival in 1803–1805. By 1839 the Granges had seven surviving children.
Ironically, during retirement Cameron and his wife lived in Paul's favorite palace, Saint Michael's Castle. The redundant and still incomplete castle was converted to living quarters and housed up to 900 residents, including the Camerons and future field marshal Diebitsh. Cameron died in 1812, before Napoleon's invasion of Russia; his widow secured a pension from the Russian Government, sold out Cameron's library and either returned to England or died in Saint Petersburg.
Read more about this topic: Charles Cameron (architect)
Famous quotes containing the words private life, private and/or life:
“In private life he was good-natured, chearful, social; inelegant in his manners, loose in his morals. He had a coarse, strong wit, which he was too free of for a man in his station, as it is always inconsistent with dignity. He was very able as a minister, but without a certain elevation of mind necessary for great good, or great mischief.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“The saint and poet seek privacy to ends the most public and universal: and it is the secret of culture, to interest the man more in his public, than in his private quality.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Why is light given to one in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, who long for death, but it does not come, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures; who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad when they find the grave?”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 3:20-22.