Rev. Archibald Ean Campbell MA

This photo is from the collection of Leeds postman Tom Wheldon (also spelt Weldon) who served in 1/8 Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment during WW1 and was a veteran of the Boer War.  

Rev. Archibald Ean Campbell (1856-1921) was Vicar of All Souls, Blackman Lane, Leeds, from 1891 until 1901 and acted as chaplain to the Leeds Rifles. All Souls is not far from the centre of Leeds and close to Carlton Hill Barracks, the former home of the Rifles.

The son of a colonel, Rev. Campbell was educated at King William's College, IOM, and Clare College, Cambridge. After being ordained in 1881, he became a curate in Aberdare, and then rector of Castle Rising in Norfolk, before his move to Leeds.

He was Provost of St Ninian's in Perth from July 1901 and was elected Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway at the end of 1903, taking up the post the following year.

According to Dr Patricia Morris in her 1983 thesis on the Leeds Rifles* "[his] passion for Volunteering led him into joining musketry practice and field days at every opportunity" and it seems he "remained in post as assistant chaplin when he became Provost of St Ninian, Perth (in 1901) and even after becoming Bishop of Glasgow (in 1904), resigning with the greatest of regret on 31 March 1908, when the new TF regulations compelled him to do so.”

She describes him as "immensely popular" and quotes the Yorkshire Post on 17 Aug 1900 which said "The Rev A E Campbell, the cheery chaplain, has so popularised his ministrations that the entire corps has voluntarily attended his early morning short service preceding the working day". He was also "very active in the Temperance Movement" and was appointed chaplain to the Leeds Battalion of the Church Lads' Brigade on its founding in 1897. 

*Leeds and the Amateur Military Tradition: the Leeds Rifles and their Antecedents.  The University of Leeds School of History 1983.  This can be found at http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/880/