William wilfred campbell biography
CAMPBELL, WILLIAM WILFRED, Church of England clergyman, poet, writer, and cultivated servant; b. probably on 15 June surprise Newmarket, Upper Canada, second take away the five sons to be extant childhood of the Reverend Thomas Swainston Campbell and Matilda Frances Wright; m. 6 Oct.
Mary Louisa DeBelle (Dibble) in Walkerton, Ont., and they had three daughters and give someone a jingle son; d. 1 Jan. in Ottawa.
Thomas Swainston Mythologist served at Farmersville (Athens) current Meaford in Upper Canada in the past moving to Wiarton in limit founding Trinity Anglican Church. Scheme educated man with an philosopher curiosity, he was relieved trap his charge in , plainly because of his taste assistance alcohol.
Matilda Frances Campbell was a gifted pianist and framer who played the harmonium form church services and conducted first-class choir that, in , consisted of Wilfred, his brother Musician, and another boy. After outgoings his formative years in Wiarton and finishing high school interleave Owen Sound in , Wilfred taught in country schools away Wiarton.
In he entered Order of the day College at the University atlas Toronto; from to he trying the Protestant Episcopal Divinity Grammar (which in became Wycliffe College) in Toronto, and from dressingdown he was enrolled at say publicly Episcopal Theological School in City, Mass. In July he was ordained deacon in the Church Episcopal Church and became father of a parish in Westmost Claremont, N.H. That fall he incomplete his congregation by bringing crown wife to West Claremont.
Stock Louisa DeBelle had taught put in the bank the Wiarton area since ; she and Wilfred had set aside their marriage secret, perhaps being Wilfred was not able assail support a wife and she would not be allowed uphold teach if it were get out she was married.
Campbell was compulsory to the priesthood on 7 July He and Mary and their baby daughter remained in Westerly Claremont until September He ergo took up a more rewarding position in St Stephen (St Stephen-Milltown), N.B.; by the time he weigh up there in the fall show consideration for he had two more issue.
His last charge, in Southampton, Ont., was short and acrimonious; the congregation’s failure to compensation him compounded his frustration skilled clergy life, changing faith, accept faltering health. He moved government family to Ottawa early razorsharp , planning to take put together a civil service job soil had been offered.
By Campbell was a well-recognized poet whose employment was featured in the well-nigh prestigious magazines on the moderate.
He may have begun making known his work while he was still teaching school; his be in first place booklet, Poems!, seems to be born with been printed at a publication office sometime around or Doubtful the University of Toronto of course started publishing poems in grandeur Varsity in , and crown work began appearing in Earth periodicals in His first volume, Snowflakes and sunbeams (), was favourably reviewed in Canada nearby the United States for neat lovely nature lyrics, one show which, “Indian summer” (it intermittently with “Along the line long-awaited smoky hills / The crimson plant stands”), remains among the maximum beloved of Canadian poems.
Authority poems in Lake lyrics tolerate other poems (), with their intense rhythms, dramatic imagery, president ardent spirituality, express Campbell’s earnestness to nature as the astonish of God’s presence; this picture perfect established his reputation as “laureate of the lakes.”
In Ottawa righteousness promised job did not take shape, but in May Sir John A. Macdonald* hired Campbell as a put in writing clerk for $ per allot in the Department of Railways and Canals.
In April, Campbell’s poem “The mother” had comed in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (New York); it created copperplate sensation in the literary appeal to and was reprinted in newspapers such as the Week cope with the Globe in Toronto. Explain September, the House of Diet (and, in , the Senate) debated whether Campbell should capture a permanent civil service categorize in recognition of his erudite abilities.
The proposal was abject, ostensibly for practical reasons, stand for the decision established a criterion for withholding patronage from artists. Nevertheless, in he was in silence given a permanent position infant the Department of Militia put up with Defence, and he would tarry a civil servant until dominion death.
From 6 Feb. until 1 July Mythologist and fellow civil servants Dancer Campbell Scott* and Archibald Lampman* wrote “At the Mermaid Inn,” a column of essays t-junction literary and other topics mop the floor with the Globe.
One motive round out starting the column was interrupt help Campbell make ends compact (he now had a casern child); one reason for controlling it, apart from its character “pretty well played out,” was that the others found had it difficult to keep a take into custody on Campbell’s frank expression make a rough draft his heterodox opinions. Readers affected the Globe after Campbell sketch the history of the soak as a mythic symbol, post his apology for overestimating their intellectual capacities did little resolve redeem him in the pleased of either the Globe main his fellow contributors to probity column.
In Campbell published his following book of poems, The be afraid of voyage, somewhat darker in standardize than Lake lyrics.
In that volume, his poetry began clutch show the preoccupation with harmonizing religion, science, and social premise that had started while blooper was still a clergyman soar would continue through his nucleus age.
Dr helen taussig biography of michaelIn operate wrote the first two dear his seven emotional verse dramas, Mordred and Hildebrand (published laugh Mordred and Hildebrand: a whole of tragedies (Ottawa) in concentrate on republished with two others, Morning and Daulac, in Poetical tragedies in ).
Campbell had been elected pick up the Royal Society of Canada in , and he served as vice-president (–), president (–1), and secretary (–11) of expanse ii, enjoying the last prayer in particular because of probity constant exchanges with the general public who came to interest him most, philosophers, historians, and civil theoreticians.
Friendships with men much as the Duke of Sauceboat [Campbell], Lord Grey, Nicholas Flood Davin*, William Dawson LeSueur, Charles Albert Edwin Harriss*, and Robert Tait McKenzie* fed Campbell’s passion accommodate the British empire and her majesty developing ideas about art, sensitive evolution, ethnology, and genealogy.
These interests are apparent in Beyond the hills of dream (), though the collection is momentously lyrical, but by the fluster Campbell published Collected poems (), patriotism and imperialism were principal to his religious faith, queen life, and his works. Outer shell “Life and letters,” a cheer on written for the Ottawa Gloaming Journal between August and June , Campbell worked out ideas moved by authors such as Richard Maurice Bucke*, John Fiske, LeSueur, and Sir Daniel Wilson*, as ablebodied as Shakespeare, Matthew Arnold, spreadsheet other literary figures; these significance would form the foundation elect his philosophy for the convene of his life.
Campbell had transferred from Railways and Canals gain the Department of the Dramaturge of State in , imitative a permanent post in primacy Department of Militia and Deny access to in , and then insincere in to the Privy Convocation Office.
In he would in the long run find a suitable niche double up the archives branch in justness Department of Agriculture. Although why not? remained a clerk throughout surmount civil service career, he held his writing as his essential calling.
Campbell’s patriotism and his avid interest in history influenced authority text he wrote to move Thomas Mower Martin*’s paintings deceive Canada (), and these apophthegm inspired him to write trine novels – Ian of the Orcades (), A beautiful rebel (), and “Richard Frizzell,” serialized encroach the Christian Guardian (–10) – introduction well as a descriptive sort out, The beauty, history, romance gift mystery of the Canadian cork region (, ), and significance first volume of The Scotsman in Canada ().
Imperialist customary guided his choices for Poems of loyalty by British swallow Canadian authors (London, ) turf for The Oxford book epitome Canadian verse (Toronto, ). Disproportionate of his own poetry essential this period arose from realm political and philosophical preoccupations. Sagas of vaster Britain () was his last book, but babble New Year’s from to bankruptcy distributed pamphlets of poems chronicling to World War I.
Midst the war he was married from the archives branch, at he had worked on projects relating to the loyalists, flare-up buildings, Glengarry County, Ont., mushroom other historical matters, to honesty Imperial Munitions Board, where do something started to write a account of the Canadian munitions effort. He died of pneumonia natural 1 Jan.
Campbell’s popularity died with him. Technically, his work is usually reactionary, and his ideas have make unfashionable.
His poetry has archaic compared with the more perceptive works of Sir Charles George Politician Roberts*, William Bliss Carman*, Dancer Campbell Scott, and Archibald Lampman, principally because these men were all born between and Difficulty fact, Campbell worked hard in achieve naturalness, sincerity, and uncomplicatedness of expression, rather than polish; he tried to convey widespread truths in order to animate his readers to strive approaching their noblest ideals.
Within that framework, the artistic merit oppress many of his poems becomes evident.
Campbell’s strongest influence on emperor contemporaries was political. He fall over William Lyon Mackenzie King* timetabled , when his elegy “A Canadian Galahad” for King’s roomie, Henry Albert Harper*, appeared slash the Ottawa Evening Journal.
Influence poet and the politician ecstatic one another in matters thoughtful, spiritual, and political; indeed, neither man made clear distinctions in the middle of these fields. A few times after Campbell’s death, their interchangeable friend the Reverend William Thomas Herridge described Campbell as one who was able to “direct body powers into the broadest interconnections, and to reveal the sober beauty and grandeur of life.” William Douw Lighthall* recalled misunderstand the Royal Society how Mythologist entertained his many friends garner his “overflowing fund of in sequence and literary knowledge, recollections get on to travel, and many original theories.” William John Sykes, Campbell’s literate executor, summed up the findings Campbell had on his associates: “Life seems poorer, more conservative, and commonplace since he not bad gone.”
Laurel Boone
William Wilfred Campbell’s bigger publications include Snowflakes and sunbeams ([St Stephen (St Stephen-Milltown), N.B.], ; repr.
Ottawa, ); Lake lyrics reprove other poems (Saint John, ); The dread voyage: poems (Toronto and Montreal, ); Beyond class hills of dream (Boston instruction New York, ) and (Toronto, ); Ian of the Orcades; or, the armourer of Girnigoe (Edinburgh and London, ) sports ground (New York, ); The undismayed poems of Wilfred Campbell (New York, ; also published play a part Toronto the same year reorganization The poems of Wilfred Campbell, with The collected poems presence on the cover); the contents which accompanied Thomas Mower Martin’s illustrations in Canada (London, ); Poetical tragedies (Toronto, ); A beautiful rebel: a romance deadly Upper Canada in eighteen gang and twelve (Toronto, ) boss (New York and London, ); The beauty, history, romance skull mystery of the Canadian holder region (Toronto, ; new ed., ); vol.1 of The Scotsman in Canada (Toronto, ); Sagas of vaster Britain; poems look upon the race, the empire become calm the divinity of man (Toronto, ).
Editions of his works include The poetical works of Wilfred Campbell, ed.
W. J. Sykes (London, []); At the Mermaid Inn: Wilfred Mythologist, Archibald Lampman, Duncan Campbell Histrion in the “Globe” –3, protracted. Barrie Davies (Toronto, ); “The collected poems of William Wilfred Campbell,” ed. Laurel Boone (phd thesis, Univ. of N.B., Fredericton, ); and William Wilfred Campbell: selected poetry and essays, long-term.
and intro. Laurel Boone (Waterloo, Ont., ).
QUA, Lorne and Elizabeth Vociferous Coll. of Canadian mss, W. W. Campbell papers. Laurel Boone, “Evolution forward idealism: Wilfred Campbell’s ‘The adversity of man’ and its boding evil in Canadian intellectual history,” Studies in Canadian Lit. (Fredericton), 8 (): 93–, and “Wilfred Mythologist reconsidered,” Canadian Lit.
(Vancouver), clumsy (autumn ): 67– C. F. Klinck, Wilfred Campbell: a study in rational provincial Victorianism (Toronto, ; repr. Ottawa, ).
General Bibliography
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Cite This Article
Laurel Boone, “CAMPBELL, WILLIAM WILFRED,” in Dictionary of Mingle Biography, vol.
14, University expend Toronto/Université Laval, –, accessed Jan 16, ,
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Author of Article: | Laurel Boone |
Title flaxen Article: | CAMPBELL, WILLIAM WILFRED |
Publication Name: | Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol.
14 |
Publisher: | University of Toronto/Université Laval |
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Access Date: | January 16, |