![\"A](\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/thumb\/msid-133533925,imgsize-101426,width-400,height-225,resizemode-4\/john-and-margaret-outside-canna-house-1975.jpg\" "\\"Campbell")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nJohn Lorne Campbell and Margaret Fay Shaw had already spent years recording Gaelic songs, stories and traditions when they made the remote Isle of Canna their home in 1938. The Scottish folklorists continued that work from the island for more than four decades before Campbell gifted Canna, their home, library, archives and sound recordings to the National Trust for Scotland.According to the Trust, Campbell was born in Argyll on October 1, 1906. The eldest son of Colonel Duncan Campbell of Inverneill and his American wife, Ethel Waterbury of New Jersey, he was educated at Cargilfield School in Edinburgh and Rugby. He later studied Rural Economy at St John\u2019s College, Oxford, as well as Celtic under Professor John Fraser of Jesus College.His interest in Gaelic had started in childhood and grew during his time at Oxford. With the help of Fraser, who became his mentor, Campbell began working on a Gaelic anthology. His first published book, Highland Songs of the Forty-Five, appeared in 1933.That same year, his work took him to the Outer Hebrides. He arrived on Barra on August 4, 1933, to study crofting conditions and colloquial Gaelic. The visit became the beginning of a long effort to collect and preserve Gaelic songs, stories and linguistic records.<\/p>\n On Barra, Campbell became involved with local people and explored the Gaelic traditions of the Hebrides. He started with an Ediphone Recorder using wax cylinders and later moved to a Presto Disc Recorder. He obtained both in New York and used equipment that was considered state-of-the-art at the time.Campbell also travelled to eastern Canada, particularly Cape Breton, to study Gaelic traditions among the descendants of 18th- and 19th-century emigrants. He found that Gaelic oral traditions were still alive after more than 100 years of separation from Scotland.In 1937, while in Nova Scotia, he also recorded the history and traditions of the Micmac Indians, the Indigenous people of the Maritime Provinces. He described Cape Breton as ‘a Highland Community where there are no lairds’.<\/p>\n Canna House sits in a walled garden that slopes towards the south.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Campbell\u2019s life took another major turn in 1938 when he bought the islands of Canna and Sanday. He and Margaret moved to Canna after spending three years living on Barra.Campbell had met Margaret Fay Shaw in South Uist in 1934, where she was collecting traditional Gaelic songs. Margaret\u2019s musical talents and Campbell\u2019s knowledge of words and language, built what became a major collection of Gaelic cultural material.The couple lived at Canna House, which had been built around 1863 by Donald Macneil, who owned the island at the time. The house and island were later sold to Greenock shipowner Robert Thom in 1881. His family remained there until his death in 1911, after which the island was eventually bought by Campbell.Canna House became both their home and a place where they continued their research. Campbell spent long hours in its library transcribing and archiving his Gaelic recordings and writing academic works. Margaret continued her own work through photography and film.<\/p>\n In 1981, Campbell presented Canna to the National Trust for Scotland. The gift included Canna House, the island, his library, archives and sound recordings. Campbell and Margaret continued living there and devoted their time to cataloguing and publishing their research.The National Trust for Scotland says the collection inside Canna House is of international importance. It includes material covering Gaelic folk songs and tales, Celtic and Norse studies, philology, music, literature and Scottish history.The archives also preserve Margaret\u2019s photographic collection of more than 6,000 images from the early 20th century in the Hebrides. Campbell\u2019s work includes 1,700 sound recordings, his Hebridean Lepidoptera collection and the research writings collected by the couple over about 60 years.The house also retains their furnishings, artworks and personal belongings, giving a record of the life they built around their research.<\/p>\n The house also shows how closely their work was tied to their everyday lives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n Campbell died suddenly on April 25, 1996, while on holiday at Villa San Girolamo in Fiesole, Italy. He had asked to be buried where he died, and he was initially interred there. In 2006, his remains were reinterred on Canna, in the bluebell woods he had planted as a young man. Margaret died in 2004. Their work, however, remained connected to Canna House through the collections they had built and preserved there.Magda Sagarzazu, who had known the Campbells closely, continued Campbell\u2019s work after his death. She had first come to Canna from the Basque Country in 1960, aged 11, with her sister and father. She spent much of her childhood on the island and developed a close bond with the Campbells, particularly John.After Campbell died, Magda lived with Margaret at Canna House and continued cataloguing and documenting his archive of papers and books until she retired in 2015.Today, Canna House is open for pre-booked guided tours. Visitors can see rooms including the library, where Campbell worked, and Margaret Fay Shaw\u2019s study, which contains examples of her work in photography and film. Her Graflex camera is also displayed there, while a projector shows film footage of everyday life on Canna and South Uist.<\/div>\n Campbell and Margaret moved to Canna in 1938 after spending three years living on Barra. John Lorne Campbell and Margaret Fay Shaw had already spent years recording Gaelic songs, stories and traditions when they made the remote Isle of Canna their home in 1938. The Scottish folklorists continued that work from the island for more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-31"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/john-and-margaret-outside-canna-house-1975.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/john-and-margaret-outside-canna-house-1975.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/john-and-margaret-outside-canna-house-1975.jpg","large":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/john-and-margaret-outside-canna-house-1975.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/john-and-margaret-outside-canna-house-1975.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/john-and-margaret-outside-canna-house-1975.jpg","blogsy-small":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/john-and-margaret-outside-canna-house-1975.jpg","blogsy-small-tall":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/john-and-margaret-outside-canna-house-1975.jpg","blogsy-small-square":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/john-and-margaret-outside-canna-house-1975.jpg","blogsy-small-masonry":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/john-and-margaret-outside-canna-house-1975.jpg","blogsy-medium":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/john-and-margaret-outside-canna-house-1975.jpg","blogsy-medium-masonry":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/john-and-margaret-outside-canna-house-1975.jpg","blogsy-large":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/john-and-margaret-outside-canna-house-1975.jpg","blogsy-wide":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/john-and-margaret-outside-canna-house-1975.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8709732a479614e7a8aa24d3eb1b239f30dc6d90c61464ed495001e7a469d856?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"Campbell and Margaret moved to Canna in 1938 after spending three years living on Barra. John Lorne Campbell and Margaret Fay Shaw had already spent years recording Gaelic songs, stories and traditions when they made the remote Isle of Canna their home in 1938. The Scottish folklorists continued that work from the island for more […]","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36 \u0b2c\u0b3f\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":1,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":5,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/john-and-margaret-outside-canna-house-1975.jpg",400,225,false],"medium":["https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/john-and-margaret-outside-canna-house-1975.jpg",300,169,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/john-and-margaret-outside-canna-house-1975.jpg",150,84,false]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/author\/admin"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8709732a479614e7a8aa24d3eb1b239f30dc6d90c61464ed495001e7a469d856?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36 \u0b2c\u0b3f\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}From Barra to Canna<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
![\"Canna](\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/photo\/imgsize-213355,msid-133534075\/canna-house.jpg\" "\\"Canna")
<\/p>\nThe 1981 gift<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
![\"Sitting](\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/photo\/imgsize-122238,msid-133534110\/sitting-room.jpg\" "\\"The")
<\/p>\nTheir work continues <\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"