Elizabeth Duncan Campbell

Elizabeth Duncan Campbell
Born
Elizabeth Duncan

11 February 1804
Quarry Head, Edzell, Forfarshire, Scotland, U.K.
Died24 December 1878(1878-12-24) (aged 74)
Lochee, Dundee, Scotland, U.K.
Children8
Writing career
Notable workSongs of My Pilgrimage (1875)

Elizabeth Duncan Campbell (11 February 1804 – 24 December 1878) was a Scottish working-class poet and autobiographical writer.

Early life, education, and early career

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 three,[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 seven.[2] She worked as a cow tender and whin gatherer[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 twenty-nine, 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]

Literary career

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]

Death

Campbell was burned when her clothing caught fire and she died on 24 December 1878 in Lochee, Dundee, Scotland.[1]

Publications

  • Burns’ Centenary, an Ode: and Other Poems (1862)[1]
  • Songs of My Pilgrimage (1875)[4]

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]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 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.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)
  2. 1 2 3 "Campbell, Elizabeth – Poet". Dundee Women's Trail. Retrieved 29 September 2025.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Shea, Victor; Whitla, William (31 December 2014). Victorian Literature: An Anthology. John Wiley & Sons. p. 258. ISBN 978-1-4051-8865-4.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 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.
  5. 1 2 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.
  6. 1 2 3 Krueger, Christine L. (2002). Functions of Victorian Culture at the Present Time. Ohio University Press. pp. 148–150. ISBN 978-0-8214-1460-6.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Lauder, Charlotte. "Campbell, Elizabeth". Piston, Pen & Press. Retrieved 29 September 2025.
  8. 1 2 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.
  9. ↑ 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.
  10. ↑ 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.
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