Campbell, John Archibald 1878 - 1948

John Archibald Campbell [commonly known as John A. Campbell; also known as John Campbell; Ino A. Campbell; and as J.A. Campbell] was born in Wolverhampton, England on 3 May 1878.  In 1890 he began attending evening classes at Wolverhampton School of Art.  After leaving school in 1893, he was employed by Bayliss, Jones & Bayliss, ironfounders and structural engineers. in Wolverhampton He also continued evening classes at the School of Art. In 1895 he was awarded the Art Mater's Certificate and that year left Bayliss, Jones & Bayliss to teach at the School of Art.

In 1898 he resigned his teaching post and moved to London where he worked as a draughtsman with the furnishing firm Waring & Gillow from 1899 to 1902. He represemted the company at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900.

In 1902 he met Heinrich Pössenbacher (1877-1959), son of the Munich interor decorator Anton Pössenbacher (1842-1920), and later that year visited Munich. After he was offered a possion as chief designer by Pössenbacher, Campbell decided to remain in the city.  Soon after his move to Germany, he  decided to become an architect. He left Pössenbacher's employ and briefly opened an office in Dresden.

In 1905 he formed an architectural partnership with the German-American architect Otto Pullich (?-1909) as Campbell & Pullich. In 1909 Pullich died as a result of an accident and Campbell & Pullich. was declared bankrupt. Campbell then returned to Munich.

In 1910 he attended the International Town Panning Conference organised by the Royal Institute of British Architects and held in London.  On 16 July 1914 Campbell was appointed Regius Professor of Architecture at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Munich, however, with the outbreak of war with Britain on 4 August that year he was professorship was annulled and he was interned in the civilian prison camp near Ruhleben.  In August 1918 he was repatriated to Britain. 

In 1920 he joined the practice of Thomas Falconer (1880-1934) in Amberley, Gloucestershire and from 1922 was a partner with Falconer and Harold Baker (1890-?) in the practice Falconer, Baker & Campbell. In 1923 he moved to London where he set up and office for the firm. The Falconer, Baker & Campbell partnership was dissolved in 1928 and not long afterwards Campbell went back to Germany. and set up an architectural practice in Berlin. However, he found it difficult to get architectural work following the economic depression in 1931 he returned to England and settled in Cornwall. In April 1941 he was appointed an architect to the Ministry of Aircraft Production in London and in 1942-43 taught at Blundell's School in Tiverton, Devon. In 1944 he moved Hoxton, London, where he worked with the architects Walter Douglas and Ronald Leask.  In January 1945 he established an architectural office at 189 Brompton Road, London.

In addition to his work as an architect, Campbell also designed furniture. Photographs of a desk, washstand and bedroom furniture designed by him and executed by Peter Waals are illustrated in 'The Studio Yearbook of Decorative Art' 1924 pp. 112, 113.  In c. 1910 he designed the title page of the German architecture and interior design journal Innen-Dekoration.

Campbell died in Mevagissey, Cornwall, England on 19 August 1948.

NOTE: this architect is sometimes confused with the Scottish architect John Archibald Campbell (1859-1909)