Field Marshal Colin Campbell, 1st Baron Clyde, GCB, KSI (20 October 1792 – 14 August 1863), was a British Army officer.

[2] After he was educated at the Glasgow Grammar School, his uncle, Major John Campbell, took over his care and sent him to the Royal Military and Naval Academy at Gosport.

The press were fascinated to find why he had changed his name, and rumours abounded that he was in fact the illegitimate son of Major Campbell, so Peter Macliver, a journalist and Colin's cousin, invented the story about the Duke of York.

Not only was it highly unusual for an ensign to meet the commander-in-chief, the Duke of York, but Campbell was on the Isle of Wight, not in London when commissioned.

[1] His battalion remained in Portugal and served under Sir John Moore during his foray into Spain, and subsequent retreat to Corunna.

[1] Campbell was posted to Gibraltar in 1810 and fought at the Battle of Barrosa in March 1811, taking command of the 9th Foot's flank companies as the senior officer not hors de combat.

Serving in his battalion's light company, he fought at the Battle of Vitoria in June 1813 and at the Siege of San Sebastián.

[7] Due to the contraction of the army after Battle of Waterloo, the number of Royal American battalions was cut back drastically.

He is not recorded as joining in the reprisals against slaves pursued by his commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Leahy, but he was on the court-martial which sentenced Reverend John Smith, the suspected instigator of the revolt, to death.

Lord Dalhousie, Governor-General of India, requested Campbell lead increasing punitive expeditions against Pathan tribesmen.

[15] He was promoted to the local rank of lieutenant general on 23 January 1855[22] and advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath on 5 July 1855.

[29] The Board of Directors of the East India Company also granted Campbell an annuity (a life-long annual payment) of £2,000 on 9 June 1858.

[30] On 11 July 1857, at an early stage in the Indian Mutiny, Lord Palmerston offered Campbell the command of all British forces in India.

[27] He was promoted to the substantive rank of full general on 14 May 1858[32] and raised to the peerage as Baron Clyde, of Clydesdale in Scotland on 3 August 1858.