George John Douglas Campbell

GEORGE JOHN DOUGLAS CAMPBELL, 8th duke (1823-1900), the second son of the 7th duke, was born April 3o 1823, and suc ceeded his father in April 1847. He had already written some pamphlets against the disruption of the Church of Scotland, and he rapidly became prominent on the Liberal side in Parliamentary politics. He was an eloquent speaker in the House of Lords, and sat as lord privy seal (185 2) and postmaster-general (1855) in the cabinets of Lord Aberdeen and Lord Palmerston. In Mr. Gladstone's cabinet of 1868 he was secretary of state for India. His refusal, against the advice of the Indian Government, to promise the Amir of Afghanistan support against Russian ag gression, threw the Amir into the arms of Russia and was fol lowed by the second Afghan War. In 1871 his son, the marquis of Lorne, married Princess Louise, the 4th daughter of Queen Victoria. His inability to assent to the Irish land legislation of 1881 led him to resign the office of lord privy seal which he held under Gladstone's administration of 1880. Detached from party politics the duke wrote many letters to The Times on questions which included the rights of landowners; but he opposed the Home Rule Bill with equal vigour. In spite of this political disagree ment his personal relations with Gladstone, based on common intellectual interests, remained unchanged. His chief preoccu pation was the reconciliation of the dogma of Christianity with the progress of scientific discovery. His books—he published The Reign of Law (1866), Primeval Man (1869), The Unity of Nature (1884), The Unseen Foundations of Society (1893), and other essays—found a wide public, and had a considerable in fluence on Victorian thought. He also wrote on the Eastern question, with especial reference to India, the history and antiquities of Iona, patronage in the Church of Scotland, and many other subjects. The duke (to whose Scottish title was added a dukedom of the United Kingdom in 1892) died April 24 190o. He was thrice married: first (1 844) to a daughter of the 2nd duke of Sutherland (d. 1878) ; secondly (1881) to a daughter of Bishop Claughton of St. Albans (d. 1894) ; and thirdly (1895) to Ina Erskine M'Neill.

He was succeeded as 9th duke by his eldest son

JOHN DOUGLAS SUTHERLAND CAMPBELL (1845-1914), whose marriage in 1871 to H.R.H. Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria, gave him a special prominence in English public life. As marquis of Lorne he was governor-general of Canada from 1878 to 1883; Member of Parliament for South Manchester, in the Unionist interest, 1895 to 1900; and he also became known as a writer both in prose and verse. In 1907 he published his reminiscences, Pages from the Past. He died May 2 1914.

See the Autobiography and Memoirs of the 8th duke, edited by his widow (1906), which is full of interesting historical and personal detail.