John Campbell Shairp (30 July 1819 – 18 September 1885) was a Scottish critic and man of letters.
Life
He was born at Houstoun House, Linlithgowshire, the third son of Major Norman Shairp of Houstoun, and was educated at Edinburgh Academy and the University of Glasgow.
Shairp gained a Snell exhibition to Balliol College, Oxford in 1840. In 1842 he won the Newdigate prize for a poem on Charles XII of Sweden, and took his degree in 1844. During these years the "Oxford Movement" was at its height. Shairp was stirred by John Henry Newman's sermons, and admired the poetry of John Keble, on whose character and work he wrote an essay; but he remained faithful to his Presbyterian upbringing. After leaving Oxford he took a mastership at Rugby School under Archibald Campbell Tait.
In 1857 Shairp became assistant to the professor of humanity in the University of St Andrews, and in 1861 he was appointed to that chair. In 1868 he was presented to the principalship of the United College, St Andrews, and lectured from time to time on literary and ethical subjects. In 1877 he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in succession to Francis Hastings Doyle. He was re-elected to the chair of poetry in 1882, and discharged his duties there and at St Andrews until the end of 1884. He was a friend and correspondent of the Scottish poet and composer, Mary Maxwell Campbell, who lived at St Andrews.
Shairp died at Ormsary, Argyllshire.
