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.