A letter in Stabroek News by Keith Bernard entitled “The British – and Durch – descended populations historiography seems to have been drowned out by larger ethnic narratives” caught my attention yesterday morning. One of the most prominent professional institutions that have emerged from Guyana’s colonial history is the law firm of Cameron & Shepherd which was established by two British solicitors William Stuart Cameron and Charles Edward Shepherd and whose Senior Partner up to 2006 was Joseph Arthur King, popularly known as “Joey King,” whose great grandparents were British.
The monumental contribution to the legal profession of Cameron & Shepherd, which was established on 4 April, 1901, and celebrates its 125th anniversary next year, has been hidden behind a wall of silence dictated by the rules against advertisement by lawyers. Although the rules remain, times have changed, and the history of Cameron & Shepherd has been published online and in a privately published book.
British and Portuguese barristers and solicitors comprised the early professionals – the British were mainly imported, and the Portuguese were from several generations of the DeFreitas family. The last British barrister at Cameron & Shepherd was J.H.S. Elliot, who spent from 1957 – 1963 at the firm. He acquired his Q.C. with JOF Haynes, Forbes Burnham and B.O. Adams in British Guiana and was a leading lawyer in the period.
Although in my time in the PPP I was criticized for working for the ‘white imperialists,’ the PPP governments of 1957 to 1964 felt comfortable in utilizing the expertise of Cameron & Shepherd. J. Edward de Freitas, a solicitor and Senior Partner in the 1950s and 1960s, one of the most prominent in British Guiana and a formidable professional, was called into service. He was the first Chairman of the board of directors of the British Guiana Electricity Corporation. The only ‘white’ people who were at Cameron & Shepherd in 1977 among the 30 plus staff were the late Joey King and Josephine Whitehead (still a partner). Neither was ever associated with British colonialism or ‘white imperialism’ in any way.
Cameron, who was descended from Van Battenberg, the Dutch Governor of Berbice, had made several efforts to establish a law firm. Although he would have considered himself British, and not Guianese, it appears that his British Guianese birth inculcated in him a British Guianese affinity. He first attempted to establish a firm with Patrick Dargan, a lawyer, whose name has survived as the prize in school debating competitions. It did not survive and his nephew, the newly qualified Charles Shepherd, 22, joined him from the UK. Cameron & Shepherd’s practice grew and eventually represented the largest local and foreign owned businesses in British Guiana. It also represented a large number of small, British Guianese businesses which began to emerge in agriculture, trading and in other areas. We are now the largest customer of the Deeds and Commercial Registries, appear in the most court cases and are the most prolific appellate lawyers in Guyana’s legal history. A few of our cases have reached the Privy Council and our lawyers have appeared there.
Cameron died at the age of 65 in 1924. His obituary mentioned his English wife and daughters. He was long divorced and his family had been living in England. The obituary did not mention his African Guianese wife and children. Some Guyanese with the surname of ‘Cameron’ are descendants of Cameron. The firm survived with imported British barristers even though Shepherd got married to a daughter of Wieting of Wieting & Richter and retired early.
Cameron & Shepherd also survived the vagaries of politics of British Guiana and Independent Guyana. In the early 1960s partners of the firm were assumed, with some justification, to be anti-PPP and pro-United Force. After Independence in 1966 a completely new dispensation emerged. Cameron & Shepherd saw the loss of most of its large corporate clients through nationalization and departure to other law firms associated with the PNC government. Some balance was restored from the 1990s when businesses felt free to retain whichever lawyers they wanted. Today Cameron & Shepherd is engaged in the widest range of civil and corporate, contentious and non-contentious, legal work and continues to serve the widest range of Guyanese businesses, State agencies and private citizens.
Cameron & Shepherd is one of the oldest institutions and perhaps the oldest legally registered professional partnerships in existence today. It was formed by British citizens to serve British Guiana by applying British law to the resolution of their problems. Today Cameron & Shepherd, although it cannot be separated from its British colonial roots, has experienced a natural evolution in a post-colonial society and has emerged as a fully indigenous pillar serving an Independent Guyana within the legal field with its legacy of British law with which Guyana is largely influenced. In a sense, while the firm is a fully indigenous civil and corporate law firm, the first half of its life under British colonialism has enabled it to take the best out of British law and British practice and has enabled it to seek to apply those high standards in Guyana.
Keith Bernard’s lamentation about the historiography of the British and Dutch populations is not merely as a result of larger ethnic narratives. Other, complex factors are also responsible.