Lord Colin Campbell

Who was Lord Colin Campbell?

Lord Colin Campbell was a Scottish Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1878 to 1885.

Campbell was the fifth son of George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll, and his wife Lady Elizabeth Georgiana, daughter of George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland. He was educated at Eton College, St Andrews University and Trinity College, Cambridge. He entered Middle Temple in 1875 and was a lieutenant in the 2nd Argyll Rifle Volunteers. He entered Parliament for Argyllshire in 1878, a seat he held until 1885.

Campbell died in Bombay at the age of 42.

Campbell married Gertrude Elizabeth Blood, daughter of Irish landowner Edmund Maghlin Blood, in 1881. They had no children and were separated in 1884 with an acrimonious legal battle in 1886, resulting in Gertrude's being denied a divorce. The notorious trial involved accusations of adultery from both sides, and visits by the jury to the Campbell's London home at 79 Cadogan Place to verify testimony about what the butler saw through a keyhole of Lady Campbell's encounters with other men. The couple remained married until Lord Colin's death in 1895 from syphilis; during the marriage he had also infected his wife with the disease.