Archibald James Campbell

Archibald James Campbell (18 February 1853 – 11 September 1929) was an Australian civil servant in the Victorian (later Australian) government Customs Service. However, his international reputation rests on his expertise as an amateur ornithologist and naturalist.

He was one of the principal founders of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU) in 1901 and served as its President in 1909 and 1928. He was also a founder member of the Victorian Wattle Club in 1899 and the Bird Observers Club in 1905. Campbell was active in the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria from its inception in 1880, leading pioneering expeditions and writing for their journal . He wrote the classic field guide to oology (a branch of ornithology) in Australia: Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, published in 1901.

Campbell (the ornithologist) shared his personal names, Archibald James, with his father, so to avoid confusion the ornithologist will be referred to throughout this article as "Campbell", whilst his father will be named in full.

Campbell's parents were both Scots from Glasgow. Archibald James Campbell (1817-1872) was born in an area of Glasgow known as the Gorbals, as was his future wife, Catherine Pinkerton (1833-1882).

Travelling without other family members, the 22 year-old Archibald James Campbell arrived in Melbourne in June 1840, on the barque, the Statesman. He obtained employment in Melbourne, in the Victorian Education Department , but in 1851 he moved to the rural Werribee River area which was being taken over for agricultural/pastoral purposes.

Before that, the Pinkerton extended family of twelve people had arrived in Melbourne on the barque Superb, in December 1839. By 1852, the Australian Electoral Roll records that several members of the Pinkerton family owned large tracts of freehold land on the Werribee River, used mainly to pasture sheep for the wool trade.

In that year Archibald James Campbell married Catherine Pinkerton. The first of their children was their son, AJ Campbell, born in February 1853.

William Campbell, Campbell's uncle, married Margaret Pinkerton (1829-1920), Campbell's aunt, in 1864. Years later, Margaret Pinkerton's 90th birthday was celebrated, and was described in a lengthy article in the Argus, 10 May, 1919, p.6, providing many details of life in rural Victoria in the mid-1800s. Migrant families experienced for the first time the most basic living conditions, epidemics of serious diseases (for both humans and animals), and destructive natural hazards including fire, flood and drought.

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