Mynors Bright
Encyclopedia
Mynors Bright was an English academic, president of Magdalene College, Cambridge
Magdalene College, Cambridge
Magdalene College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary Magdalene...

 from 1853 to 1873. He was the decipherer of the diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man...

.

Life

Mynors Bright was the son of the physician John Bright
John Bright (physician)
-Life:Bright was born in Derbyshire, and educated at Wadham College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. 1801, and M.D. 1808.He at first practised in Birmingham, and was appointed physician to the General Hospital in 1810; but before long he moved to London. He was elected fellow of the Royal College...

, and of Eliza his wife. He was educated at Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury School
Shrewsbury School is a co-educational independent school for pupils aged 13 to 18, founded by Royal Charter in 1552. The present campus to which the school moved in 1882 is located on the banks of the River Severn in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England...

, and entered Magdalene College, Cambridge
Magdalene College, Cambridge
Magdalene College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary Magdalene...

 on 3 July 1835. He was a senior optime in mathematics, and took a second-class in classics. He proceeded B.A. in 1840, and M.A. in 1843. He became foundation-fellow, tutor, and eventually president of Magdalene, and was chosen proctor in 1853.

The Pepys Library
Pepys Library
The Pepys Library of Magdalene College, Cambridge, is the personal library collected by Samuel Pepys which he bequeathed to the college following his death in 1703....

 being at Magdalene, Bright resolved to re-decipher the whole of Pepys's 'Diary,' and to this end he learnt the cipher from Thomas Shelton
Thomas Shelton (stenographer)
Thomas Shelton was an English stenographer and the inventor of a much-used British 17th- and 18th-century stenography.-Life:...

's Tachygraphy. In 1873 he retired from Magdalene, and left Cambridge for London. His Pepys was printed between 1875 and 1879, and was published simultaneously in 4to and 8vo, 6 vols. each. The edition included engravings of William Faithorne
William Faithorne
William Faithorne , often "the Elder", , English painter and engraver, was born in London and was apprenticed to William Peake....

's Map of London, 1658, and John Evelyn
John Evelyn
John Evelyn was an English writer, gardener and diarist.Evelyn's diaries or Memoirs are largely contemporaneous with those of the other noted diarist of the time, Samuel Pepys, and cast considerable light on the art, culture and politics of the time John Evelyn (31 October 1620 – 27 February...

's Posture of the Dutch Fleet, 1667. It corrected numerous errors occurring in the original decipherment, and inserted many passages hitherto suppressed. A complete reissue of Bright's transcript was edited by H. B. Wheatley in 10 vols. in 1893-1899.

Bright became paralysed about 1880, and died on 23 February 1883, aged 65. He never married, and bequeathed part of his interest in his Pepys to Magdalene College. His portrait was painted by F. Dickenson, and presented by his friends to his college.
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