Campbell is a small town situated on the edge of the Ghaap Plateau in the Northern Cape province of South Africa.

[2] It was originally known as Knovel Valley and then Groote Fontein, but was renamed in honour of the Reverend John Campbell who visited the Cape Colony in 1813.

It was only in 1811 that the Reverend Lambert Jansz, accompanying the traveller William Burchell, revisited the place, taking possession of the springs, by now known as Groote Fontein (Great Fountain), in the name of the London Missionary Society.

[4][5] Many missionaries and travellers of the nineteenth century passed through the valley and the settlement – including William Burchell, George Thompson, Andrew Smith, Robert Moffat, David Livingstone and G.A.

A letter from Phillip Tobias to Adam Kok V was read at the ceremony which was presided over by Northern Cape premier Dipuo Peters.