Rev. Robert Campbell

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-118718
• Occupation: 1862, St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Cambridge, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; minister
• Occupation: 1888, Montreal, Ile De Montreal, Quebec; minister

Notes:

Campbell, Rev. Robert, M.A.,D.D., Pastor of St. Gabriel Presbyterian Church, Montreal, was born on a farm near the town of Perth, Lanark county, Ontario, on the 21st June, 1835. Peter Campbell, father of the subject of this sketch, was born at Kein-a-Chullaig, Loch Tayside, Breadalbane, Perthshire, Scotland, and belonged to the Lochnell branch of the Campbell clan. One of his ancestors having taken part in the Jacobite rising in 1715, and thus having incurred the displeasure of Argyll, who was at the head of the Hanoverian forces, did not return to his native district, but placed himself under the protection of his other great kinsman, Breadalbane, who was neutral in that contest, and who assigned him the property called Keina-Chullaig.

Peter Campbell was a man of high character and intelligence. He had for a time been a teacher in Scotland, and this gave him much influence with his Highland countrymen who accompanied him to Canada in 1817, and settled in the Bathurst district. He brought some money with him to Canada, and owned the first yoke of oxen in the settlement ; although during the first season he had to carry a bag of flour on his back through the woods from Brockville, a distance of about fifty miles, having no road to follow but guided only by the blazes on the trees. He was chosen an elder of the first Presbyterian church, which was under the ministry of Rev. William Bell, shortly after his arrival in the country. But as he was born and bred in the Church of Scotland, he united with that branch of the Presbyterian communion as soon as it was established in Perth under the ministry of the late Rev. T. C. Wilson, of Dunkeld, Scotland, and was installed an elder in it too, which office he retained till his death in 1848.

Margaret Campbell, Rev. Dr. Campbell's mother, was of the Gleno and Inverliver branch of the clan Campbell. She was born in Glenlyon, Scotland, her mother being a MacDiarmid, one of the oldest families in Scotland. Mrs. Campbell ably seconded her husband in all his aims and efforts ; and one of the results of their joint influence and instruction was that three of their sons became ministers of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland, and a fourth studied for the ministry of the Baptist church, but his health broke down before he was able to complete his course of preparation.

Robert was the seventh son, and eleventh child of the family, his youngest brother being Rev. Alexander Campbell, B.A., of Prince Albert, North-West Territory. He was educated at the common school, near his birth place ; but as it happened that the school was taught by a succession of able masters, one of them being an admirable scholar in both classics and mathematics, he enjoyed considerable advantages, and he, with his youngest brother, made very rapid progress in study. He himself "became a common school teacher at the age of sixteen ; and the desire he had to perfect himself in the subjects which he had to teach was the best master he was ever under, and he learned more always while teaching than while avowedly only a student under the direction of others.

In 1853 he entered as a student at Queen's University, taking the only open scholarship for the year. This scholarship he retained by competition every year all through his course. In 1855 he obtained the first medal ever offered in Queen's College for a special examination in English history and ancient geography. In 1856 he graduated B.A., and in 1858 M.A., in the same university. He taught the public school near Appleton in 1852, and the next year the school at Leckie's Corners, near Almonte. In 1856 he was appointed headmaster of the Queen's College Preparatory School, where he had under his care, at a time when High schools were few and inefficient throughout the country, students from all parts of Canada, and even from Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, who had it in view to matriculate in Queen's University. A great many of the youth of Kingston also took advantage of the educational facilities afforded by the school. This position he held till 1st October, 1860, when he quitted it with a view to entering the ministry of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland.

In the autumn of 1860, after having received license as a preacher in Canada, he went abroad with a view to seeing a little of the world, and becoming familiar with men and things in the older civilized communities, and he remained thirteen months in Great Britain and the Continent, taking advantage of access to the museums, art galleries, and learned societies of Edinburgh particularly, where he spent most of the winter, as well as giving occasional attendance at lectures in the university.

He returned to Canada late in the autumn of 1861, and accepted a call in April, 1862, to St. Andrew's Church, Galt, Ontario, having declined overtures from Melbourne, Beckwith, and one or two other charges. He remained in Galt till 1st December, 1866, when called to his present sphere of labour as minister of the oldest Presbyterian church in the inland provinces. The centennial celebration of the founding of the congregation that built this church was held on the 9th of March, 1886, and was an occasion of great interest to the entire community. The University of Queen's College conferred the degree of Doctor of Divinity upon him at the convocation in April, 1887.

Rev. Dr. Campbell is chairman of the Board of Management of the Widows' and Orphans' Fund of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland; a member of the Executive Committee of the Temporalities Board of the same church ; a trustee of Queen's University, and a member of the Senate of the Presbyterian College, Montreal. Ho held the office of lecturer in Ecclesiastical History for two sessions in Queen's University, Kingston, and was a vice-president of the Natural History Society of Montreal. He has maintained steadfastly his early religious convictions. But while orthodox himself, he has always exercised toleration towards those that could not see exactly as he did.

Rev. Dr. Campbell won the prize for the best essay on Presbyterian Union offered by a committee of gentlemen in Quebec and Montreal in the year 1866, which was afterwards published, and greatly helped to leaven public opinion on that question. He is now engaged on a history of the St. Gabriel St. Church, Montreal, which will shortly be published, and cannot fail to prove of great interest to every Presbyterian in Canada.

Rev. Dr. Campbell was married on the 29th of December, 1863, to Margaret, eldest child and only daughter of Rev. George Macdonnell, minister of St. Andrew's Church, Fergus, a faithful, useful, and highly respected minister of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland. Rev. D. ,7. Macdonnell, B.D., of Toronto, and G. M. Macdonnell, Q.C., of Kingston, are her brothers. Her mother was Elizabeth Milnes, of the same stock as Moncton Milnes, Lord Houghton.1a

Geo. MacLean Rose, A Cyclopaepdia of Canadian Biography being chiefly men of the time. Rose Publishing Co., Toronto 1888

Occupation:
After the departure of Rev. Bayne, St. Andrew's was served by Revs. John Malcolm Smith (1848-1850), Hamilton Gibson (1850-1860), Robert Campbell (1862-1866), James B. Muir (1867-1874), and William Masson (from 1874 until his resignation in October 1879). Rev. Smith and Rev. Gibson also travelled to Woolwich once a month to preach to the congregation of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Winterbourne.<sup>1a

1a</sup>Ambrose, Rosemary. Waterloo County Churches A Research Guide to Churches Established Before 1900. Kitchener, Ontario, Canada: Waterloo-Wellington Branch, Ontario Genealogical Society, 1993. [used the kind permission of Rosemary Ambrose 2011]

Robert married Margaret MacDonnell 29 Dec 1863, Fergus, Nichol Twp., Wellington Co., Ontario, Canada. Margaret was born Abt 1840, Of, Fergus, Wellington Co., Ontario; died Yes, date unknown. [Group Sheet]

1. Patrick George Campbell was born 22 Jul 1865, Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; was christened 13 Aug 1865, Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; died 7 Mar 1866, Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada.