author
James M. Campbell
1846–1903
A Scottish civil servant and ethnologist, he became one of the key literary and scholarly figures in late-19th-century Bombay. He is best remembered for editing major volumes of the Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency and for writing on the history and communities of western India.
1 Audiobook
History of Gujarát Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Volume I, Part I.
by James M. Campbell
About the author
Born in Scotland in 1846, James Macnabb Campbell studied at Glasgow before joining the Indian Civil Service and moving to Bombay in 1869. Over the course of his career he served in a range of administrative posts, while also building a reputation as a careful researcher of western India's history, society, and traditions.
Campbell's name is closely tied to the Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, a large reference project that gathered historical, geographical, and ethnographic knowledge about the region. He also wrote works including History of Gujarát, combining official service with wide-ranging scholarly interests.
During the 1890s he was regarded as an important intellectual presence in Bombay. He died in 1903, leaving behind writing that still matters to readers interested in colonial India, regional history, and early ethnographic study.