Walter Frederick Campbell of Shawfield (sometimes given "of Islay") (1798–1855), was a Scottish politician. He served as the MP for Argyllshire, 1822–1832 and 1835–1841. Early life and political career He was born on 10 April 1798, the son of John Campbell (1770–1809), and his wife Lady Charlotte Susan Maria Campbell, daughter of John Campbell, 5th Duke of Argyll. His father was the son of Walter Campbell of Shawfield, from whom Walter Frederick inherited the island of Islay. He was educated at Eton College from 1811, and succeeded his grandfather in 1816. Campbell took over the Argyllshire parliamentary seat of his uncle Lord John Campbell in 1822, based on his Whig sympathies. Initially his attendance in the House of Commons was sporadic. He did not contest his seat in 1832, shortly after his first wife's death; he was returned unopposed in 1835, and remained in parliament to 1841. Campbell was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 3 June 1822. Laird of Islay As the Laird of Islay Campbell contended from 1816 with the agricultural face of the post-Napoleonic depression. He intended to retain the local population, to avoid clearances and counter mass emigration. To that end, he built new villages and improved infrastructure, worked to diversify agriculture and also dictated its reform. Local features were the relative absence, compared with most of the western Scottish Highlands, of tenants with larger sheep farms, and the incidence of land subdivision associated with kelp production. Campbell spent heavily, and a debt of £815,000 lay on the estate. During the 1840s Islay was hit by the agricultural depression and potato blight associated with the Highland Potato Famine. Campbell suffered bankruptcy in 1847. Campbell in April 1847 was assuring officials that he would create employment so that men would not be idle: but in writing to Edward Pine Coffin, commissary-general, the Deputy-Commissary-General John Saumarez Dobree voiced a worry that Campbell was weakening his own finances. Joseph Mitchell was a guest of the Campbells at the time, and witnessed Campbell's predicament: a greater concern than the blight was that tenants were not paying rents. Banks ceased to lend. Official policy was to use a Drainage Act for job creation, and for many landlords there was considerable benefit: but in the Islay case a successful application for support by Campbell led to his trustees running the employment schemes that kept tenants solvent. Creditors moved