Murdoch Campbell

Murdoch Campbell (1900–1974) was a Scottish minister and devotional author. He served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland in 1956.^[1]

He has been called "the greatest Scottish devotional writer of the 20th century".^[2]

He was born at Swainbost in Ness on the Isle of Lewis in 1900^[3] the son of a crofting missionary of the Free Church of Scotland. He was educated locally until the age of 12 then apprenticed as a shipwright in Greenock. In 1918 he was conscripted into the army during the First World War. After the war he returned to Greenock as a shipwright.^[2]

In 1922 he studied to be a civil servant at Skerry's College in Edinburgh, then began studies in Divinity at Edinburgh University before training as a minister at the Free church of Scotland College in Edinburgh. His first ministry was at Fort Augustus.^[4]

He served as the Free church minister at Culnacarn on the Glenmoriston estate from 1930 to 1934 and gained a reputation as a fire and brimstone style preacher, focussed on the evils of sin. In 1934 he was translated to the Highland (Gaelic) Church in Partick, Glasgow.^[4]

In the Second World War he served as a Naval Chaplain at Portsmouth and Plymouth. In 1951 he became minister of Resolis on the Black Isle.^[3]

He retired due to ill-health in 1968. He died on 10 January 1974. He is buried in Fodderty graveyard.^[5]

He was married to Mary Fraser of Fodderty (b.1899). One child died in infancy. Their son David Campbell was involved in the publication of some of his works.

• "God's Unsettled Controversy" (1941)
• "The Loveliest Story Ever Told" (1963)
• "Gleanings of Highland Harvest" (1964)
• "In All Their Affliction" (1966)
• "Memories of a Wayfaring Man" (1974-posthumous)^[6]
• "Wells of Joy" (Gaelic poems)
• "From Grace to Glory"
• "Everlasting Love: Devotional Sermons"
• "The Suburbs of Heaven"