James Campbell (1828-1893)

Born in Liverpool in 1828, James Campbell was one of a group of painters from that city who came under Pre-Raphaelite influence in the 1850s. They became familiar with the movement through seeing paintings by Brown, Hunt and Millais exhibited at the Liverpool Academy from 1848 onwards.

The son of an insurance clerk, Campbell was a student at the Liverpool Academy before entering the Royal Academy Schools in 1853. His exhibited in the 1857 exhibition at Russell Place and become a member of the Hogarth Club, although most of his works were shown at the Liverpool Academy where he became an Associate in 1854 and a Member in 1856.

His best surviving works are narrative and genre paintings filled with much detail and dramatic incident. Campbell moved back to London in 1864, making an unsuccessful attempt to maintain a painting career; he married a widow, by whom he had children, and for a time lived in Reigate, Surrey. His eyesight failing almost completely, he returned to Liverpool, and died in Birkenhead on 25 December 1893.