Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu/446

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Campbell
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Campbell

India) Campbell impressed upon him their importance and his knowledge of communication among the sepoys. Unable to reach his new post at Agra owiiig to the mutiny, he remained at his old post at Umballa. Thence he forwarded to the 'Times' an interesting series of letters on the course of the mutiny, under the signature of 'A Civilian.' Campbell was the first to enter Delhi after its capture. On 26 Sept., as provisional civil commissioner, he joined the column pursuing the mutineers. Subsequently he went with the troops to the relief of Agra. During the pursuit of the rebels, he rode ahead of the troops and accidentally captured three of the rebels' guns, the gunners thinking him to be leading a body of cavalry.

After a short stay at Agra he accompanied Sir Hope Grant's force to the relief of Cawnpore and Lucknow (26 Oct.) On arrival at the former place, however, his functions as civil commissioner ceased, and he was soon afterwards ordered to Benares as adviser to (Sir) John Peter Grant [q. v. Suppl.] In a final contribution to the 'Times' signed 'Judex,' Campbell insisted upon the absence of concerted rebellion among the Mohammedans, and declared that he had been unable to find any proof of the alleged atrocities committed upon white women. Leaving Benares for Calcutta at the end of November 1857, he was employed by the Governor-general (Lord Canning) to write an official account of the mutiny for the home authorities. Campbell subjoined a recommendation to reorganise the northwest provinces on the Punjab system. After Colin Campbell's capture of Lucknow, Campbell was ordered there as second civil commissioner of Oude. He also for a time had charge of the Lucknow district, and was entrusted with the restoration of order and the care of the Oude royal family. He was not always in harmony with the policy of Lord Canning. In his annual report for 1861 he contended for a system of tenant right, and thus initiated a controversy which became acute under Lord Elgin's viceroyalty, and was not settled till 1886, when the Oude Landlord and Tenant Law was passed. Lord Lawrence supported Campbell's views, which in the main prevailed. Campbell visited England in 1860, and after returning to Lucknow he, in 1862, introduced into Oude the new Indian codes of civil and criminal procedure and the penal code. In the same year he was appointed by Lord Elgin a judge of the newly constituted high court of Bengal. His judicial duties, which were confined almost entirely to the appellate courts, were not heavy, and he was employed by the viceroy, Lord Lawrence, on special missions to Agra to inquire into the judicial system of the north-west provinces. His recommendations were the foundation on which the new high courts were established in 1865. His legal investigations were embodied in 'The Law applicable to the new Regulation Provinces of India, with Notes and Appendices,' 1863, 8vo.

While at Calcutta Campbell devoted much time to his favourite study of ethnology. After a long tour in India in 1864-5 he published 'The Ethnology of India' and a pamphlet called ' The Capital of India, with some particulars of the Geography and Climate of that Country,' 1865, in which Nassik, near Bombay, was recommended as a suitable site for a new capital. In 1866 he visited China, and on his return was sent to Orissa as head of a commission to report upon the causes of the recent severe famine (the most serious in Bengal since 1770) and the measures taken by the local administrators. The report of 1867 was unfavourable to the Bengal officials. It recommended improved transport and means of communication, increased expenditure and security of tenure for cultivators. Campbell himself was entrusted with the compilation of a supplementary report on former famines, and on changes of administration needed to meet future ones. In the spring of 1867 he left India to collect materials at the India office in London. On his return in the autumn he was appointed chief commissioner of the central provinces, where in his own words he went to work 'in new broom style.' He nominally held the post for three years, but in 1868 his health broke down and he went to England on long furlough.

During a two years' absence from India Campbell stood for Dumbartonshire as an advanced liberal, but retired before the polling day. He also made two tours in Ireland to study the land question, the outcome of which was 'The Irish Land,' 1869, in which were advocated the tenant-right principles embodied in the land acts of 1870 and 1881. For the Cobden Club series on land tenure he also published in 1870 a volume on 'Tenure of Land in India.' New editions appeared in 1876 and 1881. He was created D.C.L. of Oxford on 22 June 1870. Having been somewhat unexpectedly offered the lieutenant-governorship of Bengal, he sailed for India in January 1871. Lord Mayo, then viceroy, was in sympathy with his views, and Campbell was appointed to carry out the changes he had recommended in the supplemental Orissa report. He obtained the assistance as secretary of Mr. (afterwards