George Campbell, Eddrachillis

George Campbell, a native of Sutherland, came from Dornoch to become the first teacher in Eddrachillis appointed by the Gaelic Schools Society. He began his work in Achriesgill in 1821. The Rev Robert Clark, then missionary minister of the Eriboll station, had written to the Society pleading for a gaelic teacher for the parish. Although there were English schools – the parish school in Scourie and the SSPCK school in ‘Ashire’ [Oldshore] – the majority of the population could not read in their own tongue. Letters in the annual reports of the society in the 1820s and 1830s testify of how well Mr Campbell taught the population, adults as well as children, to read the scriptures in gaelic. He was also appointed as the catechist in the congregation. He is recorded in the 1841 census in Scouriemore where his occupation is listed as catechist. He previously lived in Kinlochbervie. He died aged 62 or 63 in 1843. He married Janet Bruce in Dornoch in 1806. They had three godly sons: Walter a Gaelic Society teacher and missionary in North Uist, William a preacher of the gospel in Wick and the youngest George, an elder in Glasgow.

The following brief sketch is from the Free Presbyterian Magazine of April 1904, vol 8(10): p395-396:

Notes on a Highland Worthy.

George Campbell, Gaelic Schoolmaster, Scourie.

In our notice last month of the late Mr. William Campbell, preacher, Wick, we made reference to his father, George Campbell, who finished his course in Scourie, Sutherlandshire.

He died shortly after, and not before the Disruption of 1843, as stated in the above notice. He came out with the other witnessing worthies at the Disruption, but, while clear as to the duty, he discharged it (as we are told by his only surviving son, Mr. George Campbell) with heaviness of spirit, realising the great importance and value of a national Church. The following is the portrait of him given in a description of a pre-Disruption “Men’s Day” in Durness by the late Rev. Eric Findlater, of Lochearnhead, and quoted in Brown’s Annals of the Disruption:— “George Campbell, a Gaelic schoolmaster, and a native of Sutherlandshire, renews the discussion. He is a man about 60, dressed in a camlet cloak, and with a head of long steel-grey hair parted in the midst, and falling down in a mass behind. His features are well proportioned, and a quick intelligence courses over them, as the aurora borealis does across his native sky. He is one of nature’s orators; and so well toned was his voice, so harmonious his periods, and so graceful his action, that it was like music to the ear. But all this was sanctified; and as he discourseth of what the Lord hath done for his soul, they would be indifferent indeed who could do else than listen; and though in general he showed the harmlessness of the dove, there were occasions when he could testify that he had the spirit of the lion…Our testimony to him would infer that he was a man who knew divinity not only experimentally but systematically.”