Dr. John Lorne Campbell


1906 - 1996

Folklorist, historian and author, noted for his study of Hedridean and Gaelic culture. The eldest son of Lt. Col. Duncan Campbell of Inverneill, he was brought up in Taynish (Argyll and Bute). Campbell lived for a time on Barra where he enjoyed the company of author Compton Mackenzie (1883 - 1972). He married American Margaret Fay Shaw in 1935 and the couple purchased the island of Canna in 1938, living together at Canna House. He gave the island to the National Trust for Scotland in 1981. He was created a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1989, and awarded an OBE in 1990.

Campbell died while visiting an Italian monastery and was interred there. In 2006, his remains were transferred to Canna, where a stone quarried at Taynish marks his grave. His internationally-important archive, comprising manuscripts, unique sound recordings, film and photographic material, has been kept on Canna where it is preserved by the Hebridean Trust.


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