Dr John Lorne Campbell FRSE LLD OBE () (1 October 1906 – 25 April 1996) was a Scottish historian, farmer, environmentalist and folklorist, and recognized scholar of both Celtic studies and Scottish Gaelic literature.
Early life
According to his biographer, Ray Perman, the family of John Lorne Campbell claimed descent from the Clan Campbell tacksmen of Craignish (), through a son of disinherited 16th-century heir Tearlach Mòr. According to Penman, however, there is no documentary proof that the son of Tearlach Mòr ever existed.
The family is known, however, to have risen from modest beginnings due to the successful career "in trade" and in the British Army of General Sir Archibald Campbell, by whom the family estate at Inverneill was originally purchased, during both the Seven Years' War and the American War of Independence. Despite his own descent from the General's younger brother Duncan, John Lorne Campbell always referred to Sir Archibald in later years as his "honoured ancestor" and kept a portrait of him hanging inside Canna House. Sir Archibald's silver teapot was similarly kept permanently displayed on the mantlepiece of Canna House, next to the teapot of the General's wartime enemy, Vermont Patriot Colonel Ethan Allen, which Campbell's wife, American ethnomusicologist Margaret Fay Shaw, had inherited from her own family.
Campbell was born in an Edinburgh nursing home on 1 October 1906, but taken almost immediately to Inverneill House on the west shore of Loch Fyne, Argyll, Scotland. His father was Lieutenant Colonel Duncan Campbell, 8th of Inverneill (1880-1954) (called "Young Inverneill", to differentiate him from his father, who shared the same first name and military rank). His mother was Ethel Harriet Waterbury, a wealthy and cultured American heiress, from Morristown, New Jersey, whom Lt.-Col. Campbell had married in 1905 to bolster the estate's "flagging finances."
In contrast to his family's tenants, who were mainly Gaelic-speaking Roman Catholics and Presbyterians who attended religious services in nearby Tayvallich, Campbell was raised in the Scottish Episcopal Church and given a staunchly Pro-British, Pro-Empire, and Pro-Unionist upbringing within the Anglo-Scottish gentry of Argyllshire. Campbell later recalled that his family, like the other landowners of Argyll, felt a deep sympathy for the Anglo-Irish landlords and accordingly watched with horror the events of the Land War, the Easter Rising of 1916, and the Irish War of Independence.
He was educated at Cargilfield School in Edinburgh and then Rugby in England.
As he was expected to inherit the family estate, Campbell's coming of age in 1927 was celebrated with a feast and formal dance inside the massive stone barn at Taynish House. Campbell's Aunt Olive was in charge of organizing the party and invited not only friends and relatives, but also the estate tenants, most of whom her nephew had never met before. The tenants had secretly taken up a collection and gave Campbell a gold pocket watch and a pair of cufflinks. In return, Campbell recited a few words of Gaelic that he had learned for the occasion, "Tha mi gle thoilichte a bhith comhla ribha nochd." ("I am very pleased to be with you tonight.") Campbell was deeply touched by the warm response these words received.
Scottish nationalist
Beginning in 1926, Campbell's interest in learning his learning his heritage language was piqued during a visit to the Highland Games in Oban, where he overheard a conversation in Gaelic between four men from the Hebrides. Campbell later recalled, "I had never heard Gaelic spoken like that and I said to myself, 'That's something I should have!'"
Later that year, Campbell began attending St John's College, Oxford, studying Rural Economy with a minor in Celtic studies. The study of Rural Economy was intended to help Campbell learn how to profitably manage his future inheritance, but in 1928, Campbell learned to his horror and devastation that the Inverneill estate was being sold. Even though this was the only way to cover his father's considerable debts, both the Argyllshire gentry and Campbell himself would always view the sale as proof that his father lacked confidence in his ability to successfully manage the estate. Campbell would always treasure the gold watch and cuff links given by the Inverneill tenants at his coming of age party as a reminder of what might have been.