Furnivall , Frederick James , 1825-1910 , scholar, editor and oarsman

Born in Egham, Surrey, 1825; studied at University College London, 1841-1842; studied mathematics at Trinity Hall Cambridge, 1843-1846; founded branch of Church Missionary Society at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, [1843]; studied law at Lincoln's Inn, 1846-1849; joined the Philological Society, 1847; joined the Christian Socialist movement, 1848; jointly opened a school for poor boys and men at Little Ormond Yard, Bloomsbury, London, 1848; called to the bar at Gray's Inn, 1849; practiced law as a conveyancer, 1850-1872; jointly opened a working men's association near Oxford Street, London, 1852; became secretary of the Philological Society, 1853-1910; jointly opened Working Men's College, Red Lion Square, London, 1854, teaching English Grammar and literature, organising social events and inaugurating the Maurice Rowing Club and Furnivall Cycling Club for its students; within Philological Society formed Unregistered Words Committee with Richard Chevenix Trench and Herbert Coleridge, 1857, resulting in the proposal for a New English Dictionary on Historical Principles [later published as the Oxford English Dictionary], 1859; took over editing duties of dictionary when first official editor Herbert Coleridge died, 1861-1876; founded Early English Text Society, 1864; lost his inheritance through the collapse of the Overend & Gurney Bank, 1867, leaving him short of money for most of his life; founded Chaucer Society, 1868; founded the Ballad Society, 1868; unsuccessfully tried to form Lydgate & Occleve Society, 1872; founded the New Shakspere Society, 1873; founded Sunday Shakspere Society, 1874; embroiled in acrimonious dispute with Algernon Swinburne and Thomas Halliwell Phillips over attribution of Shakespeare's works, 1876-1881; founded Wycliff Society, 1881; awarded civil list pension, 1884; founded Shelley Society at the suggestion of Henry Sweet, 1886; lost libel lawsuit brought by the actor Leonard Outram, over accusations of impropriety in the arrangements for a performance of Strafford organised by the Browning Society, 1888; founded the National Amateur Rowing Association, 1891; formed the Hammersmith Girls Sculling Club (later the Furnivall Club) the first all female rowing club, 1896; Honorary Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 1902; Member of the British Academy, 1902; founded Gifford Street Foster Homes scheme, 1907; vice president of the Spelling Reform Society, 1907; died, 1910.
Publications: Include: Association a Necessary Part of Christianity (1850); The Sabbath-Day: an Address to the Members of the Working Men's College (1856).
As editor: La Queste del Saint Graal (London: J B Nichols and Sons for the Roxburghe Club, 1849); Robert of Brunne's "Handlyng synne" written A.D. 1303, with the French treatise on which it is founded, Le Manuel des Pechiez, by William of Wadington London (London: J B Nichols for the Roxburghe Club, 1862); Le morte Arthur: edited from the Harleian Ms. 2252 in the British Museum (London: Macmillan, 1864); The wright's chaste wife…a merry tale by Adam of Cobsam, from a MS in the library of the Archbishop of Canterbury (London: Early English Text Society Original Series 12, 1865); Bishop Percy's folio manuscript: ballads and romances (London: N Trübner & Co, 1867-1868); Hymns to the Virgin & Christ: the parliament of devils, and other religious poems, chiefly from the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lambeth MS 853 (London: Early English Text Society Original Series 24, 1867-1868); Education in early England: some notes used as forewords to a collection of treatises on "Manners and meals in olden time" (London: Early English Text Society Ordinary Series 32, 1867); A six-text print of Chaucer's Canterbury tales (London: Published for the Chaucer Society by N Trübner, 1869-77); The fraternitye of vacabondes by John Awdeley ... from the edition of 1575 in the Bodleian Library (London Early English Text Society Extra Series 9, 1869); The fyrst boke of the introduction of knowledge made by Andrew Borde, of physycke doctor… (London: Early English Text Society Extra Series 10, 1870); The Succession of Shakspere's works and the use of metrical tests in settling it (London: Smith, Elder & Co, 1874); Introduction to The Leopold Shakspere : the poet's works, in chronological order (London: Cassell, Petter & Galpin, [1877]); The pilgrimage of the life of man, Englished by John Lydgate, A.D. 1426, from the French of Guillaume de Deguileville, A.D. 1330, 1355 (London: Printed for the Roxburghe Club by Nichols and Sons, 1905); The tale of Beryn: with a prologue of the merry adventure of the pardoner with a tapster at Canterbury (London: Early English Text Society Extra Series 105, 1909).