Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Campbell, George (1761-1817)
CAMPBELL, GEORGE (1761–1817), Scotch poet, was descended from humble parents and was born at Kilmarnock in 1761. His father died when he was still very young, and he was brought up under the care of his mother, who earned her subsistence by winding yarn for the carpet works. Being apprenticed to a shoemaker, he made use of his leisure hours to educate himself with a view of entering the university of Glasgow, and while still a student there he published in 1787 a volume of ‘Poems on several Occasions,’ which was printed at the press of Kilmarnock, from which in the preceding year the first edition of the poems of Robert Burns had been issued. The poems, which are chiefly of a moral or didactic kind, are not written in the Scotch dialect. Though commonplace in thought, and not displaying much richness of fancy, their expression is often happy and the versification easy and flowing. He was ordained minister of the Secession church of Stockbridge, Berwickshire, on 19 Aug. 1794, and remained in that charge till his death on 23 Nov. 1817. In 1816 he published at Edinburgh a volume of ‘Sermons on Interesting Subjects.’
[Contemporaries of Burns, pp. 122–34; Mackelvie's Animals of the United Presbyterian Church, p. 106; Anderson's Scottish Nation.]