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Wales' first black headteacher, respected educationalist and community activist.

Early life
Betty Campbell was born Betty Johnson in Butetown, Cardiff in 1934. The area was formerly known as Tiger Bay, which was built up around Cardiff docklands and was one of the UK's first multi-cultural communities. Betty's father was killed in World War Two, when his ship The Ocean Vanguard was torpedoed in 1942, and her mother was a street bookmaker. She won a scholarship to Cardiff's Lady Margaret High School for Girls. Betty wanted to be a teacher from a young age, but faced discouragement from one of her teachers who told her the problems for a working class, black girl would be "insurmountable". She became pregnant at the age of 17, while she was doing her A levels and left school when she married Robert Campbell in 1953.

Career
In 1960 she discovered that Cardiff Training College was taking on female students, she resurrected her dream of becoming a teacher, applied and was accepted. Although her first teaching post was in a different part of Cardiff, she soon returned to Butetown getting a job at Mount Stuart Primary School. As a black teacher she experienced hostility from some parents. She was inspired by anti-slavery activists like Harriet Tubman and the US civil rights movement. When she become Wales' first Black head teacher at Mount Stuart in the 1970s she began teaching children about slavery, black history and the system of apartheid which operated at the time in South Africa.

Influence
Under her leadership Mount Stuart School raised its profile across the United Kingdom. In 1994 Prince Charles attended the school's annual St David's Day eisteddfod. In 1998, as a member of the Commission for Racial Equality, Betty Campbell was invited to meet Nelson Mandela on his only visit to Wales. She was invited to be part of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Commission on Education which published a number of research papers on education as well as,in 1993, the book "Learning to Succeed" which cited examples of excellent practice at Mount Stuart Primary School. In 2003 she was awarded an MBE for services to education and community life.