William Campbell was a colonial governor of South Carolina.
Background
William Campbell was born on July 11, 1730; the fourth son of the fourth Duke of Argyll and the Honorable Mary Bellenden, daughter of Lord Bellenden and maid of honor to Caroline, Princess of Wales.
His father had a long honorable career in public service, as an officer of the army in the Continental wars of George II and in the Rebellion of 1745, as a member of Parliament, as one of the sixteen representatives of the Scotch peerage, and as a member of the Privy Council.
Career
William Campbell entered the navy and rose rapidly to the rank of captain in 1762. Two years later he was elected to the House of Commons to represent the Shire of Argyll but resigned in 1766 when appointed governor of Nova Scotia. His governorship was marked by no notable events and was broken by three visits, one to London and two to Boston, making him absent from his station almost two years. He was evidently dissatisfied in Halifax, for he petitioned twice to be transferred, once in 1771 and again in 1773. His plea was granted in 1773 when he became governor of South Carolina, where already he had private interests, for in 1763 he had visited the colony while commanding the British ship Nightingale.
Gov. Campbell arrived at Charleston, June 17, 1775, to an ominously quiet reception, for on the preceding day the Council of Safety, appointed by the Provincial Congress, had held its first meeting. The Governor was placed in an anomalous position from the outset. His wife's relatives were all patriots. The residence he intended to occupy was unready, and he accepted perforce the hospitality of Miles Brewton, a cousin by marriage and a member of the Council of Safety. With his powers usurped by this body and in the midst of disturbed and threatening conditions, the Governor summoned an Assembly, which, uncooperative and hostile, accomplished little. In a further effort to hold the colony loyal, he turned to the frontier, where Tory support was strongest. He carried on secret negotiations for aid not only with the frontiersmen but also with the Indians. These transactions were discovered, and only the intervention of the moderates prevented the radicals from seizing him. His term of office was destined to be short, for when word was received that the British were on their way to Charleston the patriots occupied Fort Johnson, and the Governor, dissolving his Assembly, fled to the British ship Tamar. The Council of Safety invited him to return, but he declined, and when the royal fleet attacked Charleston, he was in the affray as a volunteer in His Majesty's service, commanding a lower gun-deck. In the British defeat he was wounded and returned to England, dying at Southampton.
Achievements
Politics
In June 1775, at the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, Campbell became the last British Governor of South Carolina, a position for which he had lobbied hard, because his wife was from South Carolina.
Connections
On April 7, 1763 he married Sarah, daughter of Ralph Izard, a wealthy and influential South Carolinian.