CHELSEA FOOTBALL CLUB - HOME OF THE SEAGULLS

PLAYERS - CAMPBELL, Harold

Harold Smith CAMPBELL

STATISTICS

Guernsey Number:
Career: 1901
NFC Games: 6
NFC Goals: 0
Debut: v Sturt (Norwood) 4th May 1901
Finale: v Port Adelaide (Adelaide) 13th July 1901

BIO

Harold Campbell made his Norwood debut in the historic first match played at Norwood Oval, on 4 May 1901, and got off to a good career start with a 10.11 to 5.8 victory over competition newcomer Sturt.

He also took part in the 8.11 to 2.8 defeat of Port Adelaide at Norwood three weeks later but was not a member of the team which broke Norwood's six-year premiership drought with a four point final win over the old enemy.  Harold did not stick around after that.  He joined the Western Australia Bank and played two games with Perth in 1902.

Harold was born at Laura on 29 October 1880, the third of 13 children of William and Selina Campbell.  His father, a farmer's son, was Town Clerk of Laura for 46 years. Harold was an outstanding athlete and according to family folklore was selected in the Laura football team when only 15.  He captained the Geraldton Cricket Association team in 1908 and once was chosen to play for WA, though not in a first-class match. He also excelled at tennis and golf.

Harold's banking career took him to Geraldton before 1908, then to towns in the Murchison  goldfields.  He was manager at Nannine, Brookton and, from 1927, Toodyay, where the Bank of NSW took over the WA Bank branch and he remained until retiring to metropolitan Perth about 1947.

While at Geraldton he married Hilda Baston in a high society wedding at Christ Church on 30 November 1908. The bride, a grand-daughter of pioneer pastoralists George Baston and H. R. Strickland,  was given a bag of sovereigns by her grandmother.  The plates used at the reception had been lent in the early days by Mrs Baston senior for the use of the Duke of Edinburgh at Government House when he visited WA.  

Harold Campbell died at Bentley on 25 April 1968, survived by his widow and children Barbara (Gooden) and William but predeceased by his youngest son Allan

P Robins June 2018

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