Richard Garnett (philologist)
| Richard Garnett | |
|---|---|
| Born |
25 July 1789 Otley, Yorkshire |
| Died | 27 September 1850 (aged 61) London |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Librarian |
| Known for | lexicography, philology |
Richard Garnett (25 July 1789 – 27 September 1850) was an English philologist, author and librarian at the British Museum (i.e. what is now the British Library). His son was also Richard Garnett (1835-1906) and also went into the British Library, making a name for himself as a scholar, biographer and poet. Through him are descended several writers and connections with the Bloomsbury Group.
Garnett was born at Otley in Yorkshire on 25 July 1789, the eldest son of a paper manufacturer, William Garnett. He was educated at Otley grammar school, and afterwards learned French and Italian from an Italian gentleman named Facio, it being intended to place him in a mercantile house. This design was abandoned, and he remained at home, assisting his father in his manufactory, and teaching himself German, that he might be able to read a book on birds in that language. In 1811, convinced that trade was not his vocation, he became assistant-master in the school of the Rev. Evelyn Falkner at Southwell, Nottinghamshire, devoting his leisure hours to preparing himself for the church. Within two years he had taught himself sufficient Latin, Greek, and divinity to obtain ordination from the Archbishop of York, whose chaplain pronounced him the best prepared candidate he had ever examined. After a brief settlement in Yorkshire he became curate at Blackburn and assistant-master of the grammar school, and continued there for several years, engaged in incessant study and research.
In 1822 he married his first wife, Margaret, granddaughter of the Rev. Ralph Heathcote, and in 1826 was presented to the perpetual curacy of , near Blackburn, he had some time before made the acquaintance of Robert Southey, who in a letter to John Rickman calls him "a very remarkable person. He did not begin to learn Greek till he was twenty, and he is now, I believe, acquainted with all the European languages of Latin or Teutonic origin, and with sundry oriental ones. I do not know any man who has read so much which you would not expect him to have read".
In 1834 he married Rayne, daughter of John Wreaks, esq., of Sheffield, and in 1836 was presented to the living of Chebsey, near Stafford, which he relinquished in 1838, on succeeding Henry Francis Cary, the translator of Dante, as assistant-keeper of printed books at the British Museum.
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