CAMPBELL, John (BARON), Lord High Chancellor of England: b. Springfield, near Cupar, county of Fife, Scotland, 15 Sept. 1779; d. 22 June 1861. He was educated at the gram mar school of Cupar, and at 12 entered the University of Saint Andrews (1791) for the purpose of studying for the Church. After remaining, however, for some years at college, he resolved to abandon the clerical profession, and determined to try his fortune in London. In 1798 he quitted his native country for the metropolis, where he became reporter and theatrical critic on the Morning Chronicle. In November 1800 he entered as a student of Lincoln's Inn, and in 1806 was called to the bar. He traveled the Oxford circuit, and ob tained considerable practice. In 1830 he was elected member of Parliament for Stafford, and in 1832 was appointed solicitor-general In 1834, on the retirement of Sir William Horne, he became Attorney-General, and the same year was elected one of the members of Parliament for the city of Edinburgh, serving till 1841, when he was created chancellor of Ireland, and raised to the peerage as Baron Campbell of Saint Andrews. He had scarcely,
however, assumed his official duties in Ireland, when he quitted office with the Melbourne min istry; and having now more leisure worked on his 'Lives of the Chancellors,' the first series of which was published early in 1846. On the accession of Lord John Russell to power in that year Lord Campbell accepted the chancel lorship of the duchy of Lancaster, but still continued his literary labors, completing, in seven volumes, his 'Lives of the Chancellors,' and adding two other supplemental volumes, entitled 'Lives of the Chief Justices of Eng land.' In 1850, on the retirement of Lord Denman, he was appointed chief justice; in 1859, on Lord Palmerston's resumption of the Premiership, Lord Campbell reached the high est legal dignity in the British empire, becoming Lord High Chancellor. Consult (Life of Lord Campbell,' by his daughter, the Hon. Mrs. Hardcastle.