Elizabeth Duncan Campbell
Scottish poet and autobiographical writer (1804–1878)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Elizabeth Duncan Campbell (11 February 1804 – 24 December 1878) was a Scottish working-class poet and autobiographical writer.
11 February 1804
Elizabeth Duncan Campbell | |
|---|---|
| |
| Born | Elizabeth Duncan 11 February 1804 |
| Died | 24 December 1878 (aged 74) |
| Notable works | Songs of My Pilgrimage (1875) |
| Children | 8 |
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
Publications
See also
- List of people from Dundee
- List of people from Edinburgh
- List of Scottish writers
- List of women poets
- Poetry of Scotland