Family and Education

b. c.1710, 2nd s. of Archibald Campbell of Ballimore by Margaret, da. and h. of Dugald Campbell of Shirvan. m. ?1758, Christian Drummond, sis. of Alexander Drummond, sometime consul at Aleppo, and wid. of David Campbell of Dunloskine, 1s. 1da.

Offices Held

Lt. independent co. of Ft. 1725; capt. 42 Ft. 1739; half-pay 1749.

Biography

A half-pay captain, Campbell was brought into Parliament by Argyll,1 to replace his ageing uncle Sir Duncan Campbell of Lochnell, whose secret service pension of £400 p.a. was transferred to him.2 Entirely directed by Argyll, he voted 2 May I757 with Henry Fox on the Minorca inquiry,3 and was counted by Newcastle among the few who would remain faithful to Argyll whether in or out of power.4 Sharing his patron’s interest in science, he was consulted by Dr. John Pringle and others on scientific publications, as one who bought ‘every work of reputation of that sort that comes out’.5 Apparently he voted for the Scottish militia bill.6

Although he was re-elected in 176I as a Government supporter,7 his pension was discontinued. No vote of his is recorded in the new Parliament; he is not in Fox’s list of those favourable to the peace preliminaries; and although not mentioned by Stuart Mackenzie as an absentee in the divisions of November I763 on Wilkes,8 he had by then been stricken by ‘the great disorder of body and mind which rendered him quite incapable of business of any kind’.9

In December 1763 he vacated his seat on being given the sinecure of master of the revels. On his death, 30 Dec. 1764, his widow, ‘through the interest of her husband’s relations’, received a pension of £200 p.a., half of which she allocated to the payment of his debts.10

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: Edith Lady Haden-Guest

Notes

• 1. ‘State of Elections in Scotland’, 5 Apr. 1754, Add. 32995, f. 190; Dupplin’s list 1754.
• 2. Namier, Structure, 217.
• 3. Add. 33034, f. 232.
• 4. Add. 32995, f. 383.
• 5. John Pringle to Sir John Hall, 17 May 1755, Dunglass mss.
• 6. Leven to Chas. Macky, 1 Apr. 1760, Leven and Melville mss, SRO.
• 7. Note of the Elections in Scotland, 26 Apr. 1760, Add. 33049, f. 306.
• 8. Stuart Mackenzie to W. Mure, 17 Nov. 1763, Caldwell Pprs. ii(1), p. 199.
• 9. Clan Campbell, ed. Campbell and Paton, iii. 106, 108.
• 10. Ibid. 254.