Elizabeth Duncan Campbell
Elizabeth Duncan Campbell | |
|---|---|
| Born | Elizabeth Duncan 11 February 1804 Quarry Head, Edzell, Forfarshire, Scotland |
| Died | 24 December 1878 (aged 74) |
| Notable works | Songs of My Pilgrimage (1875) |
| Children | 8 |
Elizabeth Duncan Campbell (11 February 1804 – 24 December 1878) was a Scottish working class poet and autobiographical writer.
Biography
Campbell was born on 11 February 1804 at Quarry Head, Edzell, Forfarshire, Scotland.[1] She was baptized in Tannadice parish .[1] Her father was a ploughman[2] and she was the fifth of six surviving daughters born to her family.[3] Her mother died when Campbell was aged 3,[4] which she later wrote about in her poetry as her first clear memory,[5] stating that she and her sisters "wandered like forlorn cows from morn to night."[6]
Campbell briefly attended the village school, where she learned to read, before entering agricultural service aged 7.[2] She worked as a cow tender and whin gather[4] and her employer's wife was physically abusive towards her.[7] While working as a domestic servant for the Gray family Campbell lived in Saint Malo, France, for two years.[3][7] She spent a period working as a cook at Barry's Inn in Edinburgh,[3] then became a millworker.[8]
In 1832, when she was aged 29, Campbell married a flax dresser from Brechin, Forfarshire, called William Campbell.[6] They had four sons and four daughters.[3] Her husband died in 1873 in Arbroath, Forfarshire.[2] She lived with her three unmarried daughters in Lochee after his death.[7]
Campbell firstly printed her poetry without editorial help and as short leaflets for sale.[4] Her 1875 work Songs of My Pilgrimage included a "commendatory preface"[8] by Dundee minister and poet George Gilfillan[3][4] and was edited by local civil servant Peter Whytock.[7] It also included a sample of Campbell's handwriting, a photograph and an autobiographical memoir.[5][9]
Campbell wrote in her poetry that her life had been "full of toil and sorrows so many and so deep that I never could tell them." Two of her sons died in infancy. Another son called Willie fought at Sebastopol in the Crimean War and survived, but was killed in a factory accident,[1] when he was aged 35.[4] She wrote of the Crimean War that:[10]
"I think it's a pity that Kings go to war, And carry their murd'rous inventions so far, Since Adam did blunder such blunders have been, And I weep for those that’s the victims of kings."
Campbell also included abolitionist views in her poems.[6]
Campbell was burned when her clothing caught fire and she died on 24 December 1878 in Lochee, Dundee, Scotland.[1]
Publications
Her poems Willie Mill’s Burn and Three Score and Ten were included in One Hundred Modern Scottish Poets (1880) by David Herschell Edwards.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e f Boos, Florence S. (14 April 2022), "Campbell [née Duncan], Elizabeth (1804–1878), poet and autobiographer", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.96408, ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8, retrieved 29 September 2025
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link) - ^ a b c "Campbell, Elizabeth – Poet". Dundee Women's Trail. Retrieved 29 September 2025.
- ^ a b c d e Shea, Victor; Whitla, William (31 December 2014). Victorian Literature: An Anthology. John Wiley & Sons. p. 258. ISBN 978-1-4051-8865-4.
- ^ a b c d e f Boos, Florence (1998). ""We Would Know Again the Fields...": The Rural Poetry of Elizabeth Campbell, Jane Stevenson, and Mary Macpherson". Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature. 17 (2): 327. doi:10.2307/464392. ISSN 0732-7730.
- ^ a b Boos, Florence S. (12 June 2008). Working-Class Women Poets in Victorian Britain: An Anthology. Broadview Press. pp. 120–121. ISBN 978-1-77048-275-3.
- ^ a b c Krueger, Christine L. (2002). Functions of Victorian Culture at the Present Time. Ohio University Press. pp. 148–150. ISBN 978-0-8214-1460-6.
- ^ a b c d Lauder, Charlotte. "Campbell, Elizabeth". Piston, Pen & Press. Retrieved 29 September 2025.
- ^ a b Osmond-Williams, Pip (11 August 2023). "The Poems of Elizabeth Campbell: Maternal Loss and the Crimean War". The Bottle Imp, Association for Scottish Literary Studies. Retrieved 29 September 2025.
- ^ Scholl, Lesa; Morris, Emily (15 December 2022). The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women's Writing. Springer Nature. p. 97. ISBN 978-3-030-78318-1.
- ^ Hughes, Linda K. (14 March 2019). The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Women's Poetry. Cambridge University Press. p. 154. ISBN 978-1-107-18247-9.