(25 Feb. 1830-6 May 1906), settler in New Zealand. Born Front of Lancaster, GC. Parents: Archibald Campbell, a blacksmith, and his wife Margery MacDonell. Angus, who spent early years at Williamstown, left home for Oswego, N.Y., in May 1849. After employment in the United States, he signed up on the whaling ship Vesper in 1849 and sailed out of New London, Connecticut, on a whaling voyage. Family tradition held that he had been shanghaied but his autobiography makes clear that his choice was voluntary if imprudent. Disillusioned by the harsh life at sea, he deserted ship in New Zealand in 1850. Thereafter he made his home in New Zealand except for a few years devoted to an unsuccessful venture in cotton growing in Samoa. In New Zealand he was variously an employee in the timber trade, a mill and steamer manager, a steamer captain, an ironmonger, and a storekeeper. He took his part in militia service, and received land grants, presumably for militia service. Economically, his life was not very successful but he seems to have had a happy family life. He was married in 1868 to Sarah Eliza Pritchard. At the age of 72 he prepared an autobiography and presented typed and bound copies of it to his children. The autobiography together with several letters which survive from his brother Ranald in the 1860s are of historical interest to students of GC. The Campbells were Roman Catholics in GC but Angus was converted to Protestantism and held strongly Protestant views. Despite urgings from Ranald, who stressed how much his parents wished to see him again, Angus did not revisit Canada. Perhaps the change in religion was among the reasons for the decision. He died at Auckland, N.Z. Readers of American literature will note that at one point his career parallels that of the novelist Herman Melville, who joined a whaler crew in 1841 and deserted ship (in Melville’s case, in the Marquesas), 1842.

Zella A. Moss, Sarah Eliza Pritchard and Her ‘Aiga’ (New Zealand, 1987?, pp. viii, 117) * copies of portions of the autobiography and copies of Ranald’s letters kindly supplied to the present editor by Mrs Zella A.Moss * Campbell, Campbells 596 for a Williamstown family which was probably that of Angus’ parents