John Lorne Campbell

Dr John Lorne Campbell FRSE LLD OBE (1906–1996) was a Scottish historian, farmer, environmentalist and folklore scholar.
Biography.
Campbell was born in Argyll, Scotland, on 1 October 1906, the son of Col Duncan Campbell of Inverneill (on Loch Fyne) and Ethel Harriet Waterbury, an American.
He was educated at Cargilfield School in Edinburgh and then Rugby in England. He then attended St John's College, Oxford studying Rural Economy and Celtic, graduating in 1929 and receiving an MA in 1933. During this time, Prof John Fraser engendered a strong love of Gaelic and Scots folklore.
In the 1930s Campbell was living on the Hebridean island of Barra where, with the author Compton Mackenzie, he founded the Sea League to fight for the rights of local fisherman and organised a strike of motorists in protest at having to pay tax on an island with no made-up roads. In 1935 he married the American musician Margaret Fay Shaw, whom he met on the island of South Uist. In 1938 the couple bought the island of Canna, south of Skye, and went to live there in Canna House. He farmed the island for 40 years and made it a sanctuary for wildlife. At the same time he continued to record a disappearing Gaelic heritage and to write and publish extensively about Gaelic and Highland culture and life. In 1981 Campbell gave Canna to the National Trust for Scotland, but he continued to live on the island.
Campbell's partnership with Shaw was professional as well as marital. Together the couple assembled an important archive of Scottish Gaelic song and poetry, including manuscripts, sound recordings, photographs and film, in an effort similar to that carried on by Marjory Kennedy-Fraser in the 1900s. Campbell's three-volume collection of Hebridean folk songs, published between 1969 and 1981, is regarded as a valuable source by musicians and folklorists. The Campbell archive at Canna House is now in the possession of the National Trust for Scotland.
In addition to his other interests, in 1936 Campbell began to study the distribution and migration of insects. His Hebridean collection, started on Barra in 1936 was continued on Canna from 1938 with the use of a mercury vapour moth trap from 1951 onwards. The collection now consists of 30 cabinet drawers containing 283 species of macrolepidoptera, including the first recorded specimen of the noctuid moth "Dianthoecia caesia" taken in Scotland and some other surprises. He was the official migrant recorder for Canna from 1938, and was at times able to get the help of more than one head lighthouse keeper from Hyskeir.
He died on 25 April 1996 whilst on holiday at Villa San Girolamo in Fiesole in Italy, and in accordance with his wishes was "buried where he fell", but in 2006 his body was returned to Canna and reburied in a wood planted by himself. His widow remained at Canna House until her death in 2004 at the age of 101.
Interviews with Campbell and Shaw were broadcast in 1985 on Scottish Television, in a programme called "Canna – an Island Story".
A biography of Campbell, "The Man Who Gave Away His Island" by Ray Perman, was published by Birlinn in 2010.
Bibliography.
Articles and reviews in journals.
SCOTTISH GAELIC STUDIES.
CONTRIBUTION TO THE SCOTTISH HISTORICAL REVIEW.
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE INNES REVIEW
CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCOTTISH STUDIES
CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICAN SPEECH
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE JOURNAL OF CELTIC STUDIES
CONTRIBUTIONS TO CELTICA
CONTRIBUTIONS TO EIGSE
CARMINA GADELICA 1983 REPRINT
CONTRIBUTION TO LOCHLANN
CONTRIBUTIONS TO ETUDES CELTIQUES
CONTRIBUTIONS TO AN GAIDHEAL
CONTRIBUTIONS TO GAIRM
CONTRIBUTIONS TO TOCHER
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE AMERICAN NEW CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA
CONTRIBUTIONS TO "OUTLOOK"
Outlook was a monthly magazine published at Edinburgh from April 1936 to January 1937, edited by David MacEwen and J.H. Whyte. JLC contributed four of Deonaidh Caimbeul's Gaelic stories which later appeared in SIA SGIALACHDAN, several articles and reviews.
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE COMPANION OF GAELIC STUDIES, Edited by Derick S. Thomson.
CONTRIBUTION OF THE SECOND EDITION OF THEODOR RESEBERY "MICROBES AND MORALS"
CYMMRODORION SOCIETY TRANSACTIONS
THE SCOTSMAN
THE SCOTS MAGAZINE
THE CAPUCCIN ANNUAL
Apart from these, JLC has at times reviewed books for An Gaidheal, the Free Man, the Modern Scot, the New Alliance, the Oban Times, Outlook, the Scotsman, the Stornoway Gazette, and the Tablet, as well as writing articles on such subjects for them. Reviews written by JLC for Scottish Gaelic Studies are included in the list under that heading.
Recordings.
EDIPHONE: 274 recordings made on Barra and Cape Breton in 1937. Most of the airs of the Cape Breton Gaelic songs have been transcribed by the late Seamus Ennis when working for the Irish Folklore Commission. The words were taken down by JLC in Cape Breton. It is hoped to publish this. No machine is available to play these wax cylinders now.
PRESTO DISC RECORDINGS: The first electrical recordings of traditional Gaelicd songs were made by JLC in Barra in 1938, numbering 110. Very important as some of the singers did not survive until the time of tape. Ten songs from these recordings were published by the Linguaphone Co. for the Folklore Institute of Scotland, of which JLC was president, in 1950; see No.22, 32 more Presto disc recordings were made on Canna in 1942, including one of the late Professor John Fraser.
WEBSTER WIRE RECORDINGS: 1202 recordings made between 1949 and 1957, most between 1949 and 1951 when JLC had a Leverhulme Expense Grant . Some made in Nova Scotia.
GRUNDING TAPE RECORDINGS: 602 made between 1957–1962.
PHILLIPS PORTABLE TAPE RECORDER: 125 recordings made between 1963 and 1969.
CASSETTE RECORDINGS: Made since 1969. Not yet listed.
Most of the wire and tape recordings were made in the southern Outer Hebrides, or from visitors thence to Canna. The reciters who made them, and the help given by collaborators, are described in the Introduction to Hebridean Folksongs Vol. III; transcriptions of the singing of 42 women and 8 men, are represented in the three volumes, which with Angus MacLellan's stories and memoirs and its published in Gairm only represent a fraction of the collection of recordings. Apart from the above recordings, JLC arranged for the making of studio recordings of some of the late Calum Johnston's songs, in Edinburgh in 1948.
Entomology.
Besides a large number of notes in entomological journals, the following articles were published: