James Campbell

Dr. James Campbell was a British naval surgeon and a geographer based in Bangkok in the 1850s-1870s, where he treated the Queen of Siam and the small community of Western expatriates. According to Anna Leonowens, he attempted to save the life of King Mongkut's "favorite daughter", Fa-Ying, stricken by cholera, to no avail, in May 1863.

As a geographer, James Campbell helped Henri Mouhot in setting up his travels -- the latter thanked him (along with botanist and explorer Robert Hermann Schomburgk -- in the English version of his travelogue --, and later on, after the French naturalist's death, sent several documents to his brother Charles.

With a special interest in studying puberty average age among Thai young girls (he published "On the Age at Which Menstruation Begins in Siam" in the Edinburgh Medical Journal, 1862), Dr. Campbell was appointed surgeon of the Bangkok British Consulate -- installed by Charles Bartlett Hillier in 1856 -- on Jan. 29, 1857.

On a 1861 map of Bangkok, it appears that Dr. Campbell house, south of the Fort on the Menam River, was adjacent to the British and French Consulates, and close to the American Mission and to Mgr Pallegoix's residence. In 1870, he was still listed as the Consulate Surgeon in the Chronicle and Directory for China, Japan and The Philippines (Hong Kong, 1870).