Robert Campbell (Liberal politician)


Robert Campbell was a British Liberal Party politician, originally from Australia.
He was born in Sydney, Australia, on 12 July 1811, the son of Scottish-born merchant. entrepreneur and pastoralist Robert Campbell. He married Anne Orr in Parramatta, New South Wales on 15 January 1835. They later moved to England.
In 1859 he bought Buscot Park where he lived until his death in 1887.
He was elected MP for Helston at a by-election in May 1866 but was unseated in July 1866. The by-election had originally recorded 153 votes for both him and his rival, William Brett, but Campbell was declared elected after the Returning officer cast a vote for him, after consulting a legal textbook which suggested he could make the casting vote.
A petition was lodged, and a committee decided the returning officer had no right to cast the vote and should have declared both candidates elected. However, on scrutiny one vote was taken from Campbell's total, leaving Brett elected alone. This election led to Parliament deciding that "according to the law and usage of Parliament, it is the duty of the sheriff or other returning officer in England, in the case of an equal number of votes being polled for two or more candidates at an election, to return all such candidates".
In 1877, Campbell’s daughter Edith married Herbert Reuter, of Reuters. Within a few days of her death in 1915, Reuter killed himself.
His daughter Florence married Charles Bravo and was suspected of his murder, dying in 1878 of alcohol poisoning.
Campbell’s son Robert Campbell went into politics in New Zealand.