MILL BOY TO SAVANT

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 May 1930, Page 10

MILL BOY TO SAVANT

“ENGLISH DIALECT DICTIONARY.”

A Yorkshire mill boy who could not read or write at the age of 15, but who became Professor of Comparative Philology at Oxford University, and a Doctor of Philosophy at Heidelberg, has died at Oxford at tile age of 74 years. He was Joseph Wright the famous editor of “The English Dialect Dictionary,” states the “Daily Telegraph.”

“Joe” Wright, as lie was affectionately known in his native Yorkshire, and in academic circles, began work by driving a donkey and cart for ten hours a day at Is 6d a week. Then at. the., age ..of. 7 he became a halttimer in a. mill. As a boy he never had an entire day’s schooling. He taught himself to read from the Bible and the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” largely stimulated thereto to follow the fortunes of the Franco-Prussia war in the newspapers. Having picked up a little learning at a night school, he was bold enough to start one of his own, and presently he obtained a post as a master-in—a-pr-ivate school at Manningham, near Bradford. He developed a remarkable gift for learning languages, Greek, Latin, French, and German, and, went to Heidelberg, With the first £4O he had- saved, . for an eleven weeks’ course of study, and there mastered about twelve other languages, from Sanskrit to Qld English. The mill boy’s thesis for hiS Ph.D. degree was .on the qualitative and quantitative changes of the Indo-Gennanic vowel system in Greek. He also studied at Leipsic and elsewhere in Germany, becoming a ripe scholar, and the friend and collaborator of the foremost German philologists of his day. Finally, he graduated to Oxford, where he became deputy to Max Muller, the professor of comparative philology, and in 1901 he succeeded to the chair, holding the post until 1925, when he beeffme Emeritus Professor. It was the habit of Professor Wright to spend the long vacation each year in Yorkshire, spending the days in rambles over the hills and dales in the company of his wife, who was a daughter of the Rev. F. Simeon Lea, of Tcdstone Delamere. He had an extensive and peculiar knowledge of the local dialects, and in 1892 he published his “Grammar of the Dialect of Windhill,” It was the first of many kindred publications and may bo regarded as the begetter of his great “English Dialect Dictionary.” Though the latter work bore the imprint of the Oxford University Press, it carried a rote stating that it was “printed at the expense of Joseph Wright,” Who. finding that no publisher would issue it unless guaranteed against loss, resolved to publish it himself in parts. In the part completing the first volume he stated that he had spent all his own money, over £2,000, and could not have continued the work had it not been for a grant from the Royal Bounty Fund and a Civil List pension of £2OO a year. His wife, who had been one of his earliest students, was his chief subeditor, and at the end of ten years’ labour he had completed his gigantic task, ami produced a dialect dictionary in six volumes, containing 100.000 words.

Following I ho. “Dictionary” came the “English Dialect. Grammar,” the “Old English Grammar,” a “Grammar of the Gothic Languages,” and many other books of philological worth, in most of which he was ably assisted by his wife.