John Campbell

John Campbell, by John Robertson Reid, 1893 -NPG 2523 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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John Campbell

by John Robertson Reid
Oil on canvas, 1893
29 7/8 in. x 25 1/4 in. (760 mm x 640 mm) overall
NPG 2523

Inscriptionback to top

Signed in red paint lower left: ‘John R Reid 1893’;
inscr. on book lower right: ‘MUTINY’.
Plaque on front of frame, lower member: ‘Surgeon-Major John Campbell, C.B., I.M.S. / 1817–1904 / by John Reid, 1893. / Presented by the executors of the estates of / Miss Marion Isabella Campbell, 1932.’
On back of frame, torn label, centre left member, inscr. in ink: ‘NPG / November 1st 1931 / John Campbell’;
faded illegible label, top left corner.

This portraitback to top

Serving with the forces of the British East India Company, whom he accompanied in Afghanistan and Sind, the sitter was in India when the Sepoy Rebellion broke out in 1857. After the recapture of Cawnpore (Kanpur), he was 'then drafted to Lucknow where he remained all through the siege', [1] which lasted from late July to November, when the garrison soldiery and their families were barricaded into the area of the Residency. In a 'review of services of which England may well be proud', he was listed as Dr J. Campbell, of the 7th Light Cavalry, among the 'medical men who were, like others, grossly overworked during the siege … Everything was against them; bad air, bad food and an insufficient supply of medicines; and yet they at the cost of no small personal exertion and daily risk, struggled manfully, with unwearying perseverance, through their many difficulties'. [2] According to a later acquaintance, during the siege Campbell attended to

the sick and the wounded, the starving and the dying, and helping the poor women at the birth of their children, all this with the horrors night and day of being killed or blown up by the mining of the city. There was always a look in Dr Campbell’s eyes as if he were continually looking out for the relief expected but so long delayed. [3]

For his services in Lucknow, Campbell was mentioned in despatches on 16 January 1858, and on 16 November 1858 he was promoted to surgeon-major and appointed Companion of the Bath. [4] Crawford (1930) lists Campbell’s medals for service in Afghanistan in 1842, and the defence of Lucknow in 1858, with 'one year’s extra service'. He retired from the Army on 24 September 1864.

For the Siege of Lucknow, see NPG 5851. The garrison was relieved by Sir Colin Campbell, the new commander of the British armies, on 17 November 1857. [5]

Together with all other ‘European’ units of the British East India Company, the regiment to which Campbell was attached was placed under the command of the British crown in 1858, and formally moved into the Army in 1862, when it was designated as the 21st Regiment of Hussars. A detachment saw service in the 1884–5 expedition to Sudan and in 1898, redesignated as the 21st Lancers, served again in Sudan, when three members won the Victoria Cross at the battle of Omdurman. Although Campbell was long retired from the Army, it may be that these later engagements, together with his memories of Lucknow, contributed to the artist’s decision to paint him.

The portrait, however, is not of the ‘old soldier’; he wears no medals and the only accessory pointing to a military career is the barely visible book under the sitter’s hand, on the spine of which is glimpsed the word ‘MUTINY’. In a vigorous but overworked depiction of age, we see an elderly man (Campbell was 76 in 1893) with thin white hair, large, tobacco-stained moustache and gaunt, veined cheeks. His posture is upright, and his eyes gaze into the distance with a blend of uncertainty and defiance.

During conservation in 1994, it was observed that the painting’s appearance 'is poor owing probably to the artist’s techniques – areas of thick, glossy dripped paint or varnish contrasts with dryly painted areas … the surface is disturbingly uneven'. [6] On head and hand paint is thickly applied, giving a rather coarse effect; the sitter’s visible ear appears very large.

John Robertson Reid was a Scottish painter who trained under George Paul Chalmers and William McTaggart and had a long exhibiting career at the Royal Academy and Royal Society of Arts, chiefly with rustic genre scenes. From 1880 he worked in Sussex and Surrey, producing scenes of rural Naturalism, often painted entirely on location (including a depiction of village cricket), and from the early 1880s in Cornwall. He was appointed president of the Society of British Artists in 1886 and of the Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers in 1898. From the early 1900s he lived in London. The present work is one of very few exhibited portraits. [7]

His sisters, Lizzie Reid and Flora MacDonald Reid (1861–1938), were also exhibiting artists. [8] His great-nephew Sir Norman Reid became director of the Tate Gallery.

The picture was bequeathed by the sitter’s niece Marion Isabella Campbell (1854–1931), whose will stated that it was ‘a gift to the Nation’ and if not accepted by the National Portrait Gallery it should be offered to the National Gallery of British Art at Millbank (as the Tate was then known). When it arrived at the NPG in November 1931 the director, H.M. Hake, knew only that Campbell was ‘a Lucknow Mutiny hero’ and, after a clearer identification, proposed that it be offered to the India Office. As he wrote to the Millbank director: 'The man is not really famous enough for us but the India Office would quite like to have his portrait. I hardly think you will covet him as a work of art but perhaps you should have a look at him before I try to arrange for his interment in Whitehall.' [9]

Meanwhile Flora Reid wrote to urge acceptance, stating that despite Campbell’s retiring disposition he was 'none the less worthy to be placed among our national heroes. It was for this purpose my brother John R. Reid, a great friend of Dr Campbell’s, painted his portrait which was exhibited on the line in the Royal Academy'. She hoped the Trustees would see fit to include the portrait 'among the worthy men who have upheld so nobly the traditions of our country'. [10]

Following Hake’s advice the Trustees agreed that Campbell’s fame was not of national importance and by January 1932 the portrait was transferred to the India Office, where it would appear the information plaque was attached. Thence it passed to the Commonwealth Relations Office and in 1960, when the future of the India Office collections was being debated, it returned to the NPG.

It is thought to be the only known portrait of surgeon Campbell.

Dr Jan Marsh

Footnotesback to top

1) Letter from Flora M. Reid to Sir Evan Charteris, 9 Dec. 1931, NPG RP 2523.
2) Gubbins 1858, p.388
3) Letter from Flora M. Reid to Sir Evan Charteris, 9 Dec. 1931, NPG RP 2523. The source of Flora Reid’s account is not known; during the 1880s she was based in Cornwall, where Campbell lived.
4) London Gazette, 16 Jan. 1858, pp.231, 266; and 16 Nov. 1858, p.4855.
5) Through his mother, Sir Colin was possibly a distant relative of the sitter, but the Campbell clan is very large.
6) Helen White, conservation report, 24 Aug. 1994, NPG.
7) A claim to fame is that Reid tutored the young Sir Winston Churchill in plein air painting.
8) The former exhibited at the RSA and RA between 1880 and 1918 (as Miss Lizzie E. Reid), the latter between 1877 and 1932.
9) Letter from H.M. Hake to J.B. Manson, 20 Nov. 1931, NPG RP 2523. Marion Isabella Campbell was the daughter of one of the sitter’s brothers, Thomas Campbell (1805–91), who lived in Looe (information from Cornwall Record Office, 2014).
10) Letter from Flora Reid to Evan Charteris, 9 Dec. 1931, NPG RP 2523.

Physical descriptionback to top

Half-length to right, white hair and whiskers, blue eyes, ruddy complexion; wearing wing collar, black jacket and tie with pin; left hand touching watch-chain and above or resting on book lying on table, spine out; watch-chain visible.

Conservationback to top

Conserved, 1994.

Provenanceback to top

The sitter; his niece, by whom bequeathed 1931.

Exhibitionsback to top

Royal Academy, London, 1894 (81) as ‘Surgeon-Major Campbell, C.B.’.

View all known portraits for John Campbell