On April 11, 1893, Eric Campbell was born at Young, his father was a solicitor and his mother Florence Russell. He was educated privately and commenced his career as an articled clerk in his father's office.

In 1914 he was commissioned in the Australian Imperial Volunteer Field Artillery and in April 1916 joined the Australian Imperial Forces as a lieutenant, he quickly gained promotion to captain then major. He was with the 12^th Australian Field Brigade, attached to general headquarters, in Flanders, on the Somme and in the final advance on the Hindenburg Line.

He was gassed, twice mentioned in dispatches and awarded the Distinguished Service Order. After the war he resumed his legal studies and was initially in partnership with S G Rowe and then with his brothers as Campbell, Campbell and Campbell in a very successful practice. At Memagong Station, near Young. He married Nancy Emma Browne in October 1924.

He retained his interest in the military and in 1932 transferred to the reserve. He had turned to paramilitary activity in 1925 when he and major John Scott had recruited a secret force of 500 ex-officers to try to put down a seaman's strike.

In 1930 he became recruitment officer for a vigilante group of businessmen, ex-officers and graziers alarmed by the Depression and the election of J T Lang's Labor Government, they were known as the Old Guard.

Early in 1931 Campbell disappointed with the Old Guard, launched the New Guard. He organised it along military lines, with a peak membership of 50,000. The Guard rallied in public, broke up communist's meetings, drilled, vilified the labor party and demanded the deportation of communists.

In January 1932 Campbell stated that Lang would never open the Sydney Harbour Bridge and referred to him as a tyrant and scoundrel. Rumours were rife that the New Guard were plotting a Coup or the kidnapping of Lang, but Francis DeGroot's antics of cutting the ribbon were an anti-climax and the Guard's popularity began to wane.

It appears that Campbell was about to be charged with conspiracy when the Lang Government was dismissed by the Governor. With the easing of tension the New Guard slowly disappeared as Campbell became more authoritarian and militant. Campbell was involved in a number of Court Actions regarding business activities, but these were dismissed, although he was forced to pay costs in one of them.

In 1941 he returned to Billaboola, part of Memagong Station, and practiced in Young. His offices were in the AMP building which are now the Government Offices. He was president of the Young Shire Council in 1949-50, later moving to a property near Yass and eventually to Canberra.

He practiced in Canberra for a time but suffered from bad health and died in 1970. Information sourced from Australian Dictionary of Biography.

Fred Wales, some interesting memories

Fred Wales was a part owner and Editor of the Young Witness. He remembered Young's politicians, particularly the great W.A. Holman, riding his bicycle from town to town, dust covering his cheap suit, which stuck to his body, whose arguments were always solid and he was a staunch free-trader.

Mr. Wales told a good story about an election battle between James Gordon and John Gough. Gordon tried to hold an election rally at The Town Hall, but on arrival found Gough to already be there. Gordon took of his coat and offered to fight.

Gordon retreated and marched with his supporters up Burrowa Street and addressed them where Dr Gardiner's Surgery was. ("Top of the Town").

Meanwhile a local chemist, Rob Armstrong, mixed an evil smelling concoction and applied it to the coat of a dog belonging to the "Chronicle" reporter. He reasoned that the dog would follow the owner as he reported the speeches. Soon after the reporter arrived at the open air meeting the electors fled and the meeting was abandoned.

The reporter strolled down to the Town Hall and there in the confined space the meeting broke up as people dashed for the exits.