This is our FINAL instalment of works by the extraordinary

ELIZABETH CAMPBELL (1783-1861)

Over the past five years, Elizabeth Campbell (1783–1861) has emerged as a fascinating historical figure. She seems to have been unusually independent of spirit and academic in her pursuits for a woman of her time. An intrepid traveller, she was also an amateur artist, Alpinist, geologist and archaeologist. The watercolours she made on her extensive travels reflect these interests, going far beyond the picturesque views women of polite society typically made at this date.

We first exhibited Elizabeth Campbell’s watercolours from her 1825 journey through Sicily in 2021, followed by works from her 1826 trip through Lazio and Abruzzo in 2025.  Since our first exhibitions, new research has transformed our understanding of Elizabeth Campbell. Morag Cross has brought renewed attention to Campbell’s role as an archaeologist through articles for Trowel Blazers and Historic Environment Scotland, while Elaine Astill has explored her achievements as an early mountaineer in The Alpine Journal. Michael Heafford has further helped us through generously sharing his knowledge of travelling in Switzerland in the early nineteenth. Finally, in 2024, Elizabeth Campbell featured in the exhibition Another View: Landscapes by Women Artists at the Lady Lever Art Gallery, drawing on works from National Museums Liverpool’s collections.

Elizabeth was the daughter of Sir Charles Turner Bt. of Kirkleatham (1721-1783) and his second wife, Mary Shuttleworth (1751-1786). Following Sir Charles’ death in 1783, Mary married Sir Thomas Gascoigne (1745–1810) but died herself soon after the birth of their first son, in 1786. Elizabeth was therefore raised by Sir Thomas Gascoigne at Parlington Hall near Leeds.

In 1801, Elizabeth married Lieutenant Colonel William H. Campbell. William served in the Peninsular Wars, dying of fever in Portugal in 1811and leaving Elizabeth a widow with their young daughter, Thomasina (1804-1888). From 1828, Elizabeth leased Kilravock Castle, Nairn, where she ran the estate in a typically hands-on manner.  She also began to pursue an interest in archaeology, making excavations at sites such as the Bronze Age Clava Cairns tombs outside Inverness.

In the years immediately following her husband’s death, Campbell undertook a series of journeys across Europe. Travel among women of the British cultural elite was far from unprecedented during this period, but Campbell’s travels bore little resemblance to the conventional Grand Tour undertaken by wealthy men – and, more occasionally, women. Her stepfather, Sir Thomas Gascoigne, travelled as a Grand Tourist. His two tours were marked by luxury and excess, involving extravagant feasting, heavy drinking, and notoriously unruly behaviour across Europe. His adventures included scandals involving multiple lovers and even the killing of a coachman in Rome. Throughout these journeys he was accompanied by an entourage of wealthy companions, among them the noted travel writer Henry Swinburne (1743-1803), who recorded many of their exploits.

Instead of visiting celebrated capitals and fashionable resorts, Elizabeth and her daughter Thomasina spent much of their time journeying through small rural towns and villages pursuing their various interests and making extensive records of local customs, dress, archaeology, geology, flora and fauna. Campbell’s watercolour albums and diaries provided a record of these tours and in some ways should be considered their culmination.

Our previous exhibitions of Elizabeth’s works recorded relatively short, packed tours, often over difficult terrain. However, the works below were made over a prolonged period between August 1833 and October 1834. Why Elizabeth and Thomasina Campbell remained in Switzerland for such an extended period is uncertain, although two possibilities stand out. The first is Elizabeth’s evident enthusiasm for the Alps. She is known to have made a number of previous journeys to Switzerland and she and her daughter became the first recorded women to cross the Gol du Geant from Chamonix to Courmayeur on 19th August 1822. Not only was this an incredible feat for two women, but in 1822 it was a fundamentally difficult and not often attempted passage. Naturally, Elizabeth compiled and album of watercolours recording every stage of her expedition, now in a private collection. A second possibility is that they had family connections in Geneva. During their stay, another English woman named Thomasina (née Campbell) was living in the city as the wife of the distinguished Genevan surgeon Jean-Pierre Maunoir (1768-1861). Given the rarity of the name Thomasina Campbell and the Maunoir family’s strong Anglo-Genevan connections, it is plausible that she was a relative.

The Watercolours

In the Summer of 1833 the Campbells appear to have been staying in Geneva at Pension Wolff in Pré-l’Eveque, run by a Mme Wolff, the wife of a Professor at the University and which seems to have been regarded as a safe place for women to stay. They then moved to Varembé to stay with a M Julliard from October 1833 to August 1834. As the map below shows, from these bases the Campbells embarked on three campaigns of site-seeing … Geneva, the Salève, Chamonix and the upper Rhône valley / Lake Biel, Lake Neuchâtel, and Lake Geneva / and the environs of Geneva, with excursions around Lake Geneva and the border country.

As has been mentioned above, Elizabeth Campbell’s watercolours reflect her evident appreciation of Switzerland’s natural scenery, but they also depict places of historical and intellectual significance. See, for example, the tomb of Calvin, the medieval castles of Allinges, Erlach, and Nyon, and the Château de Tournay, where Voltaire lived during the 1750s before his theatrical productions provoked the hostility of Geneva’s Calvinist authorities. Unfortunately, we do not have corresponding diary entries for these watercolours as we did with Elizabeth’s watercolours of Sicily and Italy. However, we feel sure that, had those entries remained, they too would be filled with references to the harvesting of vineyards at Erlach and on the Rhone, of the processes of drying Hemp at Petit-Saleve, detailed notes of the peaks seen in her panoramas, the changing geology and notes on botany.

All works are sold mounted as shown here. Frames can be provided – please contact the gallery for a quote.

UK postage and packing – FREE
International postage and packing – £15

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