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James Murray (lexicographer)
Encyclopedia
Sir James Augustus Henry Murray (7 February 1837 – 26 July 1915) was a Scottish
lexicographer and philologist. He was the primary editor of the Oxford English Dictionary
from 1879 until his death.
near Hawick
in the Scottish Borders
, the eldest son of a draper, Thomas Murray. A precocious child with a voracious appetite for learning, he left school at the age of fourteen because his parents were not able to afford to send him to local fee-paying schools. At the age of seventeen he became a teacher at Hawick Grammar School and three years later was headmaster of the Subscription Academy there. In 1856 he was one of the founders of the Hawick Archaeological Society.
In 1861, Murray met a music teacher, Maggie Scott, whom he married the following year. Two years later, they had a daughter Anna, who shortly after died of tuberculosis
. Maggie, too, fell ill with tuberculosis
, and on the advice of doctors, the couple moved to London
to escape the Scottish winters. Once there, Murray took an administrative job with the Chartered Bank of India, while continuing in his spare time to pursue his many and varied academic interests. Maggie died within a year of arrival in London. A year later Murray was engaged to Ada Agnes Ruthven, and the following year married her.
By this time Murray was primarily interested in language
s and etymology
. Some idea of the depth and range of his linguistic erudition may be gained from a letter of application he wrote to Thomas Watts, Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum
, in which he claimed an ‘intimate acquaintance’ with Italian
, French
, Catalan
, Spanish
and Latin, and 'to a lesser degree' Portuguese
, Vaudois
, Provençal
& various dialects’. In addition, he was ‘tolerably familiar’ with Dutch
, German
and Danish
. His studies of Anglo-Saxon and Mœso-Gothic
had been ‘much closer’, he knew ‘a little of the Celtic
’ and was at the time ‘engaged with the Slavonic
, having obtained a useful knowledge of the Russian
’. He had ‘sufficient knowledge of Hebrew
& Syriac
to read at sight the Old Testament
and Peshito
’ and to a lesser degree he knew Aramaic
, Arabic
, Coptic
and Phoenician
. However, he did not get the job.
By 1869, Murray was on the Council of the Philological Society
, and by 1873 had given up his job at the bank and returned to teaching at Mill Hill School
in London
. He then published The Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland, which served to enhance his reputation in philological circles.
Murray had eleven children with Ada (all having 'Ruthven' in their name, by arrangement with his father-in-law, George Ruthven); the eldest, Harold James Ruthven Murray
became a prominent chess historian, and one son Wilfrid George Ruthven Murray wrote an account of his father.
to meet the Delegates of the Oxford University Press
, with a view to his taking on the job of editor of a new dictionary
of the English language
, to replace Johnson’s
and to capture all the words then extant in the English speaking world in all their various shades of meaning. It would be a massive project, which required somebody with Murray’s knowledge and single-minded determination.
On 1 March 1879, a formal agreement was put in place to the effect that Murray was to edit a new English Dictionary. It was expected to take ten years to complete and be some 7,000 pages long, in four volumes. In fact, when the final results were published in 1928, it ran to twelve volumes, with 414,825 words defined and 1,827,306 citations employed to illustrate their meanings.
In preparation for the work ahead, Murray built a corrugated-iron
shed in the grounds of Mill Hill School
, called the Scriptorium
, to house his small team of assistants as well as the flood of slips (bearing quotations illustrating the use of words to be defined in the dictionary) which started to flow in as a result of his appeal. As work continued on the early part of the dictionary, Murray gave up his job as a teacher and became a full time lexicographer.
In the summer of 1884, Murray and his family moved to a large house on the Banbury Road
in north Oxford
. Murray had a second Scriptorium built in its back garden, a larger building than the first, with more storage space for the ever-increasing number of slips being sent to Murray and his team. Anything addressed to ‘Mr Murray, Oxford’ would always find its way to him, and such was the volume of post sent by Murray and his team that the Post Office
erected a special post box
outside Murray’s house.
Murray continued his work on the dictionary, age and failing health doing nothing to diminish his enthusiasm for the work he had devoted much of his life to. He died of pleurisy
on 26 July 1915 and was buried in Oxford.
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
lexicographer and philologist. He was the primary editor of the Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
from 1879 until his death.
Life and learning
Sir James Murray was born in the village of DenholmDenholm
Denholm is a small village located between Jedburgh and Hawick in the Scottish Borders region of Scotland, UK. It lies in the valley of the River Teviot...
near Hawick
Hawick
Hawick is a town in the Scottish Borders of south east Scotland. It is south-west of Jedburgh and south-southeast of Selkirk. It is one of the farthest towns from the sea in Scotland, in the heart of Teviotdale, and the biggest town in the former county of Roxburghshire. Hawick's architecture is...
in the Scottish Borders
Scottish Borders
The Scottish Borders is one of 32 local government council areas of Scotland. It is bordered by Dumfries and Galloway in the west, South Lanarkshire and West Lothian in the north west, City of Edinburgh, East Lothian, Midlothian to the north; and the non-metropolitan counties of Northumberland...
, the eldest son of a draper, Thomas Murray. A precocious child with a voracious appetite for learning, he left school at the age of fourteen because his parents were not able to afford to send him to local fee-paying schools. At the age of seventeen he became a teacher at Hawick Grammar School and three years later was headmaster of the Subscription Academy there. In 1856 he was one of the founders of the Hawick Archaeological Society.
In 1861, Murray met a music teacher, Maggie Scott, whom he married the following year. Two years later, they had a daughter Anna, who shortly after died of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
. Maggie, too, fell ill with tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
, and on the advice of doctors, the couple moved to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to escape the Scottish winters. Once there, Murray took an administrative job with the Chartered Bank of India, while continuing in his spare time to pursue his many and varied academic interests. Maggie died within a year of arrival in London. A year later Murray was engaged to Ada Agnes Ruthven, and the following year married her.
By this time Murray was primarily interested in language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s and etymology
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
. Some idea of the depth and range of his linguistic erudition may be gained from a letter of application he wrote to Thomas Watts, Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
, in which he claimed an ‘intimate acquaintance’ with Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and Latin, and 'to a lesser degree' Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, Vaudois
Vaudois language
Vaudois is an extinct dialect of the Franco-Provençal language, which was spoken in and around the Canton of Vaud in Switzerland....
, Provençal
Provençal language
Provençal is a dialect of Occitan spoken by a minority of people in southern France, mostly in Provence. In the English-speaking world, "Provençal" is often used to refer to all dialects of Occitan, but it actually refers specifically to the dialect spoken in Provence."Provençal" is also the...
& various dialects’. In addition, he was ‘tolerably familiar’ with Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
. His studies of Anglo-Saxon and Mœso-Gothic
Gothic language
Gothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the Codex Argenteus, a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizable Text corpus...
had been ‘much closer’, he knew ‘a little of the Celtic
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
’ and was at the time ‘engaged with the Slavonic
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
, having obtained a useful knowledge of the Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
’. He had ‘sufficient knowledge of Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
& Syriac
Syriac language
Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...
to read at sight the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
and Peshito
Peshitta
The Peshitta is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition.The Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated into Syriac from the Hebrew, probably in the 2nd century AD...
’ and to a lesser degree he knew Aramaic
Aramaic language
Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...
, Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, Coptic
Coptic language
Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the current stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century. Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the 1st century...
and Phoenician
Phoenician languages
Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region then called "Canaan" in Phoenician, Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic, "Phoenicia" in Greek and Latin, and "Pūt" in Ancient Egyptian. Phoenician is a Semitic language of the Canaanite subgroup; its closest living relative is Hebrew, to...
. However, he did not get the job.
By 1869, Murray was on the Council of the Philological Society
Philological Society
The Philological Society, or London Philological Society, is the oldest learned society in Great Britain dedicated to the study of language. The society was established in 1842 to "investigate and promote the study and knowledge of the structure, the affinities, and the history of languages"...
, and by 1873 had given up his job at the bank and returned to teaching at Mill Hill School
Mill Hill School
Mill Hill School, in Mill Hill, London, is a coeducational independent school for boarding and day pupils aged 13–18. It is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, an organisation of public schools in the United Kingdom....
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. He then published The Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland, which served to enhance his reputation in philological circles.
Murray had eleven children with Ada (all having 'Ruthven' in their name, by arrangement with his father-in-law, George Ruthven); the eldest, Harold James Ruthven Murray
Harold James Ruthven Murray
Harold James Ruthven Murray , was an English educationalist, inspector of schools, and prominent chess historian. He was the first to publish the theory that chess originated in India...
became a prominent chess historian, and one son Wilfrid George Ruthven Murray wrote an account of his father.
Murray and the OED
On 26 April 1878 Murray was invited to OxfordOxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
to meet the Delegates of the Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
, with a view to his taking on the job of editor of a new dictionary
Dictionary
A dictionary is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon...
of the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, to replace Johnson’s
A Dictionary of the English Language
Published on 15 April 1755 and written by Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary, is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language....
and to capture all the words then extant in the English speaking world in all their various shades of meaning. It would be a massive project, which required somebody with Murray’s knowledge and single-minded determination.
On 1 March 1879, a formal agreement was put in place to the effect that Murray was to edit a new English Dictionary. It was expected to take ten years to complete and be some 7,000 pages long, in four volumes. In fact, when the final results were published in 1928, it ran to twelve volumes, with 414,825 words defined and 1,827,306 citations employed to illustrate their meanings.
In preparation for the work ahead, Murray built a corrugated-iron
Corrugated galvanised iron
Corrugated galvanised iron is a building material composed of sheets of hot-dip galvanised mild steel, cold-rolled to produce a linear corrugated pattern in them...
shed in the grounds of Mill Hill School
Mill Hill School
Mill Hill School, in Mill Hill, London, is a coeducational independent school for boarding and day pupils aged 13–18. It is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, an organisation of public schools in the United Kingdom....
, called the Scriptorium
Scriptorium
Scriptorium, literally "a place for writing", is commonly used to refer to a room in medieval European monasteries devoted to the copying of manuscripts by monastic scribes...
, to house his small team of assistants as well as the flood of slips (bearing quotations illustrating the use of words to be defined in the dictionary) which started to flow in as a result of his appeal. As work continued on the early part of the dictionary, Murray gave up his job as a teacher and became a full time lexicographer.
Banbury Road
Banbury Road is a major arterial road in Oxford, England, running from St Giles' at the south end, north towards Banbury through the leafy suburb of North Oxford and Summertown, with its local shopping centre. Parallel and to the west is the Woodstock Road, which it meets at the junction with St...
in north Oxford
North Oxford
North Oxford is a suburban part of the city of Oxford in England. It was owned for many centuries largely by St John's College, Oxford and many of the area's Victorian houses were initially sold on leasehold by the College....
. Murray had a second Scriptorium built in its back garden, a larger building than the first, with more storage space for the ever-increasing number of slips being sent to Murray and his team. Anything addressed to ‘Mr Murray, Oxford’ would always find its way to him, and such was the volume of post sent by Murray and his team that the Post Office
Post office
A post office is a facility forming part of a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies...
erected a special post box
Pillar box
A pillar box is a free-standing post box. They are found in the United Kingdom and in most former nations of the British Empire, members of the Commonwealth of Nations and British overseas territories, such as the Republic of Ireland, Australia, India and Gibraltar...
outside Murray’s house.
Murray continued his work on the dictionary, age and failing health doing nothing to diminish his enthusiasm for the work he had devoted much of his life to. He died of pleurisy
Pleurisy
Pleurisy is an inflammation of the pleura, the lining of the pleural cavity surrounding the lungs. Among other things, infections are the most common cause of pleurisy....
on 26 July 1915 and was buried in Oxford.
Honorary degrees
He was awarded honorary doctoral degrees by nine universities: the Oxford D.Litt. was in 1914.Further reading
- Murray's biographyBiographyA biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
was written by his granddaughter, K. M. Elisabeth Murray: Caught in the Web of Words: James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary (Yale University PressYale University PressYale University Press is a book publisher founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day. It became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but remains financially and operationally autonomous....
, 1977, ISBN 0-300-08919-8). - More recently, Simon WinchesterSimon WinchesterSimon Winchester, OBE , is a British-American author and journalist who resides mostly in the United States. Through his career at The Guardian, Winchester covered numerous significant events including Bloody Sunday and the Watergate Scandal...
published The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary (OUP, 2003, ISBN 0-19-860702-4). - Murray is also the "professor" referred to in Winchester's book The Professor and the MadmanThe Surgeon of CrowthorneThe Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words is a book by Simon Winchester that was first published in England in 1998...
(UK title The Surgeon of Crowthorne), even though he was never actually granted a professorship by Oxford. Dr. William Chester MinorWilliam Chester MinorWilliam Chester Minor, also known as W. C. Minor was an American army surgeon who, later, was one of the largest contributors of quotations to the Oxford English Dictionary...
, a volunteer who worked on the dictionary, was the "madman".