Thomas Chenery

Thomas Chenery
Caricature by Spy published in Vanity Fair in 1879.
Born	1826 Barbados
Died	11 February 1884 (aged 57–58) London, England
Education	Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Occupation	Editor of The Times
Spouse(s)	None

Thomas William Chenery (1826 – 11 February 1884) was an English scholar and editor of the British newspaper The Times.

Chenery was born in Barbados to John Chenery, a West Indies merchant. He was educated at Eton and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Immediately after taking an ordinary degree in 1854, he was recruited by Mowbray Morris to work for The Times, and was sent to Istanbul. On arrival in March 1854, he soon proved himself an excellent diplomatic correspondent, covering the Crimean War mainly from Istanbul, but occasionally from the front, where he relieved William Howard Russell. It was while he was in Istanbul that Chenery met Percy Smythe, who sparked his interest in philological studies, a field in which he would later gain prominence.

After the war, Chenery returned to London, where he served as a leader writer for The Times for many years, while continuing his Oriental studies. Among the languages he spoke were Arabic, Hebrew, modern Greek, and Turkish. He was one of the panellists involved in preparing the Old Testament portion of the Revised Version of the Bible. Chenery's translation of the first 26 chapters of the Arabic classic The Assemblies of Al-Hariri led to an appointment as Lord Almoner's Professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford, where he also served as secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society.