John Campbell

Who was John Campbell?

John Campbell, was a Scottish missionary and traveller.

He attended the Royal High School and was at one time apprenticed to a goldsmith. Campbell helped found the Magdalene Society, a Religious Tract Society of Scotland in 1793, and the Missionary Magazine in Edinburgh in 1796. His consuming interest in Christian philanthropy led him to preach widely in neglected villages and hamlets, promote the establishing of numerous Sunday schools and found societies like the Magdalene Asylum to help prostitutes in Edinburgh and Glasgow. His opposition to the slave trade led to his collaboration with James Alexander Haldane in bringing some 30-40 African children to be educated in England. Following the Haldane Revival, Campbell became a Congregational Church minister. He was minister at Kingsland, an independent chapel he had founded, from 1802. He was instrumental in founding the British and Foreign Bible Society and became a director of the London Missionary Society.

The London Missionary Society sent him to the Cape in June 1812 to inspect the mission stations there. He set off from Cape Town in February 1813, calling in at Bethelsdorp and Grahamstown, then the military headquarters. Heading north he visited Graaff-Reinet and Klaarwater, and then travelled further north to Litakun, the kraal of the Batlhaping kgosi Mothibi. His return trip went via Klaarwater, Pella and the Kamiesberge, arriving in Cape Town at the end of October. He wrote an account of this trip as "Travels in South Africa, undertaken at the request of the Missionary Society" and it was published on his return to London in 1815. The town of Campbell, east of Griquatown, was named in his honour.