Adams, James (1737–1802), Jesuit and philologist, was born on 3 November 1737 to William Adams and Anne or Sarah Spencer; he refers to Bury St Edmunds as his 'native town' (Euphonologia Linguae Anglicanae, 1794, 7). He was educated at the Jesuit college in ...
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Thompson Cooper
revised by John Considine
Arkisden, Thomas (1608/9–1682), Church of England clergyman and writer of shorthand, was probably born in Essex or Suffolk, one, probably the elder, of the two children of Thomas Arkisden, a minor landowner, and his wife, Francis, née Durrant. After his father's death, his guardian was his '...
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Barclay, James (fl. 1763–1774), Church of England clergyman and lexicographer, was for many years a curate at All Saints' Church, Edmonton, Middlesex, and a teacher at schools in Goodman's Fields and Tottenham. In 1763 he published What is Meant by Coming to Christ...
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Thomas J. Morrissey
Bathe, William (1564–1614), Jesuit and linguistic scholar, was born on Easter Sunday, 2 April 1564, the eldest son of John Bathe (or Bath, d. 1586), of Drumcondra on the outskirts of Dublin, and his wife, Eleanor (d. c.1575), daughter of Jenico Preston, ...
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J. M. Blatchly
Beck, Cave (bap. 1622, d. 1706), writer on universal language and Church of England clergyman, second son of John Beck, 'pandoxator' or brewer, and Anne Flecher (probably née Cave, and widow of Adam Flecher), was born in the parish of ...
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Bridges, Thomas (c. 1842–1898), dictionary compiler, missionary, and sheep farmer, was found abandoned, perhaps on a bridge near Bristol, aged about two and a half, and taken to an orphanage, the name of which remains unknown. He was adopted by the Revd George Pakenham Despard...
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Janet Bately
Cawdrey, Robert (b. 1537/8
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Samuel Ajayi Crowther (c. 1807–1891) by Ernest Edwards, c. 1864 © National Portrait Gallery, London
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Crowther, Samuel Ajayi (c. 1807–1891), bishop of western Africa and linguistic scholar, was born of Yoruba parents at Oshogun, in the south-west of Nigeria. Captured in war in 1821 he was sold on 7 April 1822 to a Portuguese slave ship in Lagos...
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Dawson, Benjamin (1729–1814), Church of England clergyman and philologist, was born in Halifax, the sixth of the seven sons of Eli Dawson (d. 1744), Presbyterian minister of Morley, Yorkshire, and his wife, Alice Taylor. He and his brother Thomas Dawson (c. 1725–1782)...
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R. M. J. Jones
revised by Dylan Foster Evans
Evans, William (d. 1776
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Farrar, Frederic William (1831–1903), dean of Canterbury, novelist, and philologist, was born in the fort of Bombay on 7 August 1831, the second son of Revd Charles P. Farrar, then a chaplain with the Church Missionary Society, and his wife, Caroline Turner (...
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Geoffrey the Grammarian (fl. 1440), lexicographer and Dominican friar, is the identity attached by tradition to the compiler of the Anglo-Latin dictionary known as the Promptorium parvulorum. In a Latin preamble the compiler says of himself only that he is 'fratrem predicatorem reclusum Lenne Episcopi...
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Gouldman, Francis (c. 1607–1688/9), Church of England clergyman and lexicographer, was the son of Richard Gouldman of Norfolk. Having been educated in London, by Thomas Farnaby, Francis matriculated as pensioner of Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1623; he proceeded BA in 1626–7 and MA in 1630. On 26 March 1634 he succeeded ...
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Holyoake, Francis (1566x73–1653), Church of England clergyman and lexicographer, was born at Nether Whitacre, Warwickshire. He was admitted to Queen's College, Oxford, as a commoner in 1582, but is not recorded as being admitted to a degree. Wood claims that he had been a schoolteacher. However, ...
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Robert Hunter (1823–1897) by G. Haworth by permission of the Geological Society of London
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T. B. Johnstone
revised by Lionel Alexander Ritchie
Hunter, Robert (1823–1897), Free Church of Scotland missionary, geologist, and lexicographer, was born at Newburgh, Fife, on 3 September 1823, son of John Mackenzie Hunter (d. 1878), an excise officer and a native of Wigtownshire, and his wife, Agnes Strickland of Ulverston, Lancashire...
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Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade
Kirkby, John (c. 1705–1754), Church of England clergyman and grammarian, claimed to have been born in Cumberland, though in the register of St John's College, Cambridge, from where he appears to have graduated BA in 1726, and proceeded MA in 1745, his birthplace is noted as ...
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P. J. L. Frankl
Krapf, (Johann) Ludwig (1810–1881), linguist of Swahili and first protestant missionary in east Africa, was born on 11 January 1810 at Derendingen near Tübingen, in the kingdom of Württemberg, the youngest of four children of Johann Jakob Krapf (1773–1846), peasant farmer, and his wife, ...
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Liddell, Henry George (1811–1898), lexicographer and dean of Christ Church, Oxford, was born at Binchester, co. Durham, on 6 February 1811, the eldest son of the Revd Henry George Liddell (1787–1872), and his wife (and first cousin), Charlotte Lyon (d. 1871), niece of the ...
