Kenneth SisamFBA (2 September 1887 – 26 August 1971) was aNew Zealand academic and publisher, whose major career was as an employee of theOxford University Press.
Born atŌpōtiki in 1887, Sisam was the eighth and youngest child of Alfred John Sisam, a police officer and farmer, and his wife Maria Knights. He was educated atAuckland Grammar School, and enteredUniversity College, Auckland, in 1906 with a scholarship, where he graduated MA in 1910.[1]
With aRhodes scholarship, Sisam matriculated atMerton College, Oxford, in 1910.[2] He completed a B.Litt. there underArthur Napier in 1915, producing an edition of theSalisbury Psalter. He married that year. In this period he taught students includingJ. R. R. Tolkien.[3] Poor health ruled out military service, and he went to work part-time on theOxford English Dictionary. In 1916, he published on theBeowulf manuscript.[1]
In 1917, the Sisams moved to London, where Kenneth worked as a civil servant. In 1922, he joined Oxford University Press (OUP). With his promotion to assistant secretary, they built a family house atBoars Hill. From 1922 to 1942 Sisam worked at OUP underRobert William Chapman while developing his scholarly work on Anglo-Saxon, but failing in 1925 to becomeRawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon (when Tolkien was chosen).[1] OUP successes under his stewardship include introducing 30 new titles to theOxford World's Classics series; the creation of theOxford Companion to English and theOxford Latin Dictionary; and the recruitment ofW. B. Yeats as editor ofThe Oxford Book of Modern Verse.[4]
Sisam was elected to theBritish Academy in 1941. Appointed OUP secretary in succession to Chapman in 1942, he became a Fellow of Merton College.[2] In 1948, he retired to theScilly Isles but continued to produce scholarship, including an influential article on 'Anglo-Saxon Royal Genealogies'[5] andThe Structure of Beowulf (1965). He died in a nursing home atLelant in Cornwall on 26 August 1971.[1]
In 1915, Sisam married Naomi Irene Gibbons (1886–1958), daughter of Robert Pearce Gibbons, fromAuckland. They had a son, Hugh, and a daughter, Celia (born 1926), who became a scholar of Anglo-Saxon.[1]
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