Frederick James Furnivall | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1825-02-04)4 February 1825 Egham, England |
| Died | 2 July 1910(1910-07-02) (aged 85) St George's Square,London, England |
| Occupation | Philologist |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
Frederick James FurnivallFBA (4 February 1825 – 2 July 1910) was an Englishphilologist, best known as one of the co-creators of theNew English Dictionary. He founded a number of learned societies on earlyEnglish literature and made pioneering and massive editorial contributions to the subject, of which the most notable was his parallel text edition ofThe Canterbury Tales. He was one of the founders of and teachers at theLondon Working Men's College and a lifelong campaigner against injustice.[1]
Frederick James Furnivall was born on 4 February 1825 inEgham, Surrey, the son of a surgeon who had made his fortune from running theGreat Fosters lunatic asylum. He was educated atUniversity College, London, andTrinity Hall, Cambridge, where he took an undistinguished mathematics degree.[2] He was called to the bar fromLincoln's Inn in 1849 and practised desultorily until 1870.
In 1862 Furnivall marriedEleanor Nickel Dalziel (c. 1838 – 1937). Some authors describe her as a lady's maid, which would have been a socially unusual match at the time,[3] although her social status is disputed.[4] Some time before 1866, Furnivall lost a child, Eena, whom he described as "my sweet, bright, only child".[5] He lost his inheritance in a financial crash in 1867. When he was 58, he separated from Eleanor and their one surviving son to continue a relationship with a 21-year-old female editor namedTeena Rochfort-Smith.[6] Two months after his formal separation from Eleanor, in 1883, Rochfort-Smith suffered serious burns while burning correspondence inGoole and died.
Furnivall was a non-smoker andteetotaller all his life. He took interest in physical fitness and was avegetarian for twenty-five years.[7]
Furnivall died on 2 July 1910.
Furnivall was one of the three founders and, from 1861 to 1870, the second editor of theOxford English Dictionary (OED). Despite his scholarship and enthusiasm, his stint as editor of theOED nearly ended the project. For a dictionary maker he had an unfortunate lack of patience, discipline and accuracy.[3][4] After having lost the sub-editors for A, I, J, N, O, P, and W through his irascibility or caprice, he finally resigned.[3] He continued, however, to provide thousands of quotations for the dictionary until his death.OED editorJames Murray said of Furnivall: "He has been by far the most voluminous of our 'readers', and the slips in his handwriting and the clippings by him from printed books, and from newspapers and magazines, form a very large fraction of the millions in the Scriptorium."[8]
Furnivall joined thePhilological Society in 1847 and was its Secretary from 1853 almost until his death in 1910 at the age of 85.
He received an honoraryDoctor of Letters degree from theUniversity of Oxford and an honoraryDoctor of Philosophy degree from theUniversity of Berlin. In April 1902 he was elected anHonorary Fellow ofTrinity Hall, Cambridge.[9]
Furnivall indefatigably promoted the study of earlyEnglish literature. He founded a series of literary and philological societies: theEarly English Text Society (1864), the Chaucer Society (1868), the Ballad Society (1868), theNew Shakspere Society (1873), theBrowning Society (1881, withEmily Hickey), the Wyclif Society (1882), and theShelley Society (1885).[4] Some of these, notably theEarly English Text Society, were very successful; all were characterised by extreme controversy. The most acrimonious of all was the New Shakspere Society, scene of a bitter dispute between Furnivall andAlgernon Charles Swinburne.[10][11]
These societies were primarilytextual publishing ventures. Furnivall edited texts for theEarly English Text Society, for theRoxburghe Club and theRolls Series; but his most important work was onGeoffrey Chaucer. His "Six-Text" edition of theCanterbury Tales was a new conception. It has been described as containing full and accurate transcriptions, though some modern scholars disagree about his merits as an editor.[citation needed] His work, and that of the amateurs he recruited, was often slapdash, but it was substantial, and it laid the foundation for all subsequent editions. He was one of a small group of Victorian scholars who have been credited with establishing the academic study of English literature.[12]
In the 1850s, Furnivall became involved in variousChristian socialist schemes and his circle includedCharles Kingsley andJohn Ruskin. It was through this group that he became one of the founders of theWorking Men's College, and although he later became agnostic he always retained a connection with the college. He conceived of the college as a classless, democratic community of learning. One biographer wrote that he formed there a conviction that "scholarship could be pursued by quite ordinary people in a spirit of good-humoured enthusiasm" that was to be the key to his later life.[4]
Furnivall was always an enthusiasticoarsman, and kept up his interest in rowing till the end of his life. With John Beesley in 1845, he introduced the new type of narrowsculling boat, and in 1886 started races on theThames for sculling fours and sculling eights. In 1896 Furnivall founded the Hammersmith Sculling Club (now calledFurnivall Sculling Club), initially for working-class girls, and he "entered into its activities with his usual boyish enthusiasm, for it brought together two of his favourite activities: vigorous outdoor exercise and enjoyment of the company of young women".[4]
Furnivall the sculler may have been the original of his acquaintanceKenneth Grahame's character Ratty inThe Wind in the Willows[13] and it has also been suggested that he inspired the portrayal of the godPan in the same work.[14]
(Swinburn) had a diabolical cleverness in tormenting Furnival, and he knew how to hint the exact charge which would excite that unfortunate man to frenzy.
