Glenlyon Campbell

Who was Glenlyon Campbell?

Glenlyon Archibald Campbell was a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1903 to 1908, and in the Canadian House of Commons from 1908 to 1911. Campbell was a member of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Campbell was born at Fort Pelly, in what was then known as the Northwest Territories. His father, Robert Campbell, was a Scotsman who served as Chief Factor for the Hudson's Bay Company, the dominant power in the region. The younger Campbell was educated at Glasgow Academy and the Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh, and worked as a farmer and rancher upon returning to Canada. He helped to establish the community of Gilbert Plains in 1884, after purchasing the first house constructed in the community from Gilbert Ross. Campbell married Harriet Burns, daughter of the Ojibwa Chief Keeseekoowenin, who had been baptized as Moses Burns by the Presbyterian missionary George Flett.

He first campaigned for the Manitoba legislature in the 1892 provincial election as a support of the opposition Conservative Party, and lost to Theodore Arthur Burrows by nine votes in Dauphin. Burrows described himself as a "Liberal-Conservative", but endorsed the Liberal government of Thomas Greenway; he later joined the Liberal Party outright. Campbell lost to Burrows again in the 1896 election, by twelve votes.