Campbell Stephen

Who was Campbell Stephen?

Rev Campbell Stephen MA BD BSc was a Scottish socialist politician.

A native of Bower parish, Caithness, he was educated at Townhead Public School, Allan Glen's School and Glasgow University.

He worked as a barrister, a teacher of science and mathematics and minister of religion. He resigned his charge at the United Free Church in Ardrossan, Ayrshire in 1918 to contest Ayr Burghs in the same year.

He was Independent Labour Party Member of Parliament for Glasgow Camlachie from November 1922 to 1931 and from 1935 until his death.

He was one of James Maxton's closest political allies within the Independent Labour Party and supported Maxton both in his attempts to foster closer relations with the Communist Party and also during the disaffiliation debate in the early 1930s. Despite his strong support for ILP independence from the Labour Party when Maxton was alive, Stephen resigned the ILP whip to sit as an Independent from July 1947, and rejoined the Labour Party in October, shortly before his death. His death sparked the Glasgow Camlachie by-election, 1948.

In 1945, he married Dorothy Jewson, a former Labour member of parliament for Norwich.