Sir Archibald Douglas Campbell, 1st Baron Blythswood (1835-1908), was a soldier and a famous amateur scientist.
Campbell joined the 79th Highlanders in 1854 and was wounded at Sebastopol the following year, while serving with the Scots Guards in the Crimean War. He retired from the regular army in 1868, although he was Commander of the 4th Battalion the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, 1874-1894, and an aide-de-camp to Queen Victoria and to Edward VII. He was Conservative MP for Renfrewshire, 1873-1874, and for West Renfrewshire 1885-1892. He became a baronet in 1880 and was raised to the peerage as Baron Blythswood in 1892.
A friend of scientists such as Lord Kelvin, Blythswood maintained his own laboratory in Blythswood House in Renfrew where he pursued his own experiments and was a pioneer in researching what became known as X-rays. He also made precision instruments and his large collection was donated to the National Physical Laboratory. He was a Friend of the Royal Society.
Reference: Mitchell Library, 920.04BAI
Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Libraries Information and Learning
Keywords:
aides-de-camp, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, baronets, Conservative Party, Crimean War, Friends of the Royal Society, laboratories, Members of Parliament, MPs, physicists, scientific instrument makers, scientific instruments, scientists, Scots Guards, soldiers, X-rays
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