John Lemprière

John Lemprière (c. 1765, Jersey – 1 February 1824, London) was an English classical scholar, lexicographer, theologian, teacher and headmaster. He was the son of Charles Lemprière (died 1801), of Mont au Prêtre, Jersey.

He received his early education at Winchester College, where his father sent him in 1779, and from 1785 at Pembroke College, Oxford, probably on the advice of Richard Valpy, graduating BA in 1790, MA in 1792, BD in 1801, and DD in 1803.

Lemprière may have been influenced by another Pembroke man, the lexicographer Dr Samuel Johnson, whose famous A Dictionary of the English Language had appeared in 1755. A little over thirty years later, around 1786, Lemprière started work on his own Classical dictionary.

In 1787, he was invited by Valpy to be assistant headmaster at Reading Grammar School, and in 1789, to the great pride of his father, he preached in St Helier, Jersey. He achieved renown for his Bibliotheca Classica or Classical Dictionary containing a full Account of all the Proper Names mentioned in Ancient Authors, (Reading, November 1788), which, edited by various later scholars, long remained a readable if not absolutely trustworthy reference book in mythology and classical history. Lemprière wished "to give the most accurate and satisfactory account of all the proper names which occur in reading the Classics, and by a judicious collection of anecdotes and historical facts to draw a picture of ancient times, not less instructive than entertaining." (Lemprière, Preface, 1788). It has been a handbook for teachers, journalists, dramatists and poets for almost two hundred years and John Keats is said to have known the book almost by heart. "Far from being just an ordinary dictionary, however, Lemprière's encyclopedic work is full of incidental details and stories which bring the mythical past to life." It is also assumed that the great scholar Valpy helped Lemprière with the dictionary.

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