Mr Cameron told The Daily Telegraph it had been “a privilege to serve the country I love”.
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Mr Cameron told MPs he had clocked up 5,500 questions during his six years as prime minister, joking that he would leave it to others to decide how many he has answered.
As the family left for the final time, he said his only wish was “continued success for this great country that I love so very much”.
He described his wife Samantha as “amazing”, and noted she was watching with their children from the public gallery.
Cameron resigned from his job on June 24 after unsuccessfully campaigning to keep the United Kingdom a member of the European Union, which was voted down in a June referendum.
Sitting nearly directly behind Mr Cameron, the picture gives a rare glimpse of the Commons in action from an MPs perspective.
But unlike the departure of Tony Blair, when Mr Cameron waved opposition MPs to their feet to applaud the outgoing Labour PM, Jeremy Corbyn and the majority of his team remained firmly seated on the green benches.
After Wednesday’s question time, Cameron was scheduled to visit Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace to tender his resignation.
Mr Cameron looked back at various points of his career including when he was sacked as special advisor by chancellor Ken Clarke.
“I have experienced a man who is serious, who is a fan of no-nonsense policy and who was delivering at each and every moment when things started to become serious”, Juncker said.
He also stressed his love for Larry the Downing Street cat – amid rumours that he was not a fan – a point he later emphasised on Twitter and swapped warm wishes with Jeremy Corbyn, saying he had nearly come to admire the Labour leader’s “tenacity” in hanging on to his job.
“In a different way, I have seen that same spirit of service in the fantastic contributions of countless volunteers in communities up and down our country who are making our society bigger and stronger”, he said.
One of the set-piece occasions of parliament, prime minister’s questions is rough-and-tumble political theatre at its best – as Cameron himself recalled.
It is understood first minister Carwyn Jones is yet to meet Mrs May, whose position on Wales is as yet unclear.
He said: “I welcome Theresa May’s acknowledgement that, after six years of Tory government in which she was a senior minister, the economy is not working for working people”.
May will need to form a Cabinet – speculated to include many female ministers and a designated Brexit minister.
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The leading Leave campaigner said it was right that the minister given responsibility for heading Brexit negotiations should be “somebody who was at the heart of the Leave campaign”.
