Joseph Rawson Lumby (1831–1895) was an English cleric, academic and author and divine,Norrisian Professor of Divinity from 1879 and thenLady Margaret's Professor of Divinity from 1892.
He was the son of John Lumby ofStanningley, nearLeeds, where he was born on 18 July 1831. He was admitted on 2 August 1841 toLeeds grammar school. In March 1848 he left to become master of a school atMeanwood; but he was encouraged to proceed to the university. In October 1854 he enteredMagdalene College, Cambridge, where in the following year he was elected to a Milner close scholarship. In 1858 he graduated B.A., being bracketed ninth in the first class of the classical tripos. His subsequent degrees were M.A. 1861, B.D. 1873, D.D. 1879.[1]
Within a few months of graduation Lumby was made Dennis Fellow of his college, and began to take pupils. In 1860 he gained the Crosse scholarship, and in the same year was ordained deacon and priest in thediocese of Ely. For clerical work he had the chaplaincy of Magdalene and the curacy ofGirton. In 1861 he won the Tyrwhitt Hebrew scholarship, and was appointed classical lecturer atQueens' College. In 1873 he joined the Old Testament Revision Company, and he worked also on the revision of theApocrypha (he just lived to see the appearance of the revised version).[2]
In 1874, a widower through the death of his first wife, Lumby was chosenFellow and Dean ofSt Catharine's College, and, having resigned his curacy at Girton, was made curate of St Mark's,Newnham. The following year he was appointed, on the nomination ofTrinity Hall, to the vicarage (non-stipendiary) ofSt Edward's, Cambridge. In 1879 he was elected to the Norrisian professorship of divinity, and was also Lady Margaret preacher for that year.[2]
Having vacated his fellowship at St Catharine's by a second marriage, Lumby was appointed to a professorial fellowship in that college in 1886. In 1887 he was made prebendary of Wetwang in theYork Cathedral, and acted as examining chaplain to thearchbishop of York and thebishop of Carlisle. On the death ofFenton John Anthony Hort in 1892, he was chosen to succeed him as Lady Margaret professor of divinity.[2]
Lumby died at Merton House,Grantchester, near Cambridge, on 21 November 1895.[2]
Lumby was one of the founders of theEarly English Text Society, and edited for itKing Horn (1866),Ratis Raving (1867), and other pieces. For theRolls series, after a request by theMaster of the Rolls to continue the work ofChurchill Babington, he edited vols. iii–ix. ofRanulph Higden'sPolychronicon (1871–86), and vol. i. of theChronicon ofHenry Knighton (1889). To the Pitt Press series he contributed editions ofFrancis Bacon'sHenry VII (1876),Venerabilis Bædæ Historiæ … Libri iii. iv. (withJohn E. B. Mayor, 1878),Thomas More'sUtopia, inRalph Robynson's English translation (1879), More'sHistory of Richard III (1883), andAbraham Cowley'sEssays (1887).
As co-editor of theCambridge Bible for Schools, he edited, with commentary,The Acts (chaps. i–xiv., 1879; completed 1884),1 Kings (1886),2 Kings (1887),The Acts in theCambridge Greek Testament for Schools (1885), also inThe Smaller Cambridge Bible for Schools (1889), and for this last series1 Kings (1891). To theSunday School Centenary Bible he contributed aGlossary of Bible Words (1880), republished in the same year in another version by theSociety for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. For theSpeaker's Commentary he edited2 Peter andJude (1881); forA Popular Commentary theEpistles to the Philippians andPhilemon (1882); and forThe Expositor's Bible the twoEpistles of St. Peter (1893).
Lumby wrote also:
He was a contributor to theninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Lupton, Joseph Hirst (1901). "Lumby, Joseph Rawson". InLee, Sidney (ed.).Dictionary of National Biography (1st supplement). Vol. 2. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
