ROBERTSON, EDWARD (1880 - 1964), professor, linguist, and librarian
Date of birth: 1880
Date of death: 1964
Parent: John Robertson
Gender: Male
Occupation: professor, linguist, and librarian
Area of activity: Education; History and Culture; Literature and Writing; Scholarship and Languages
Author: Gwilym Henry Jones
Born 1880, at Cameron, Fife, Scotland, son of John Robertson, the local schoolmaster. After atteding his father's school in Cameron and Madras College, St. Andrews, where he excelled in mathematics, he went to St. Andrew's University, graduated M.A. and B.D., and proceeded to the universities of Leipzig, Berlin and Heidelburg; he also went to Syria for a year to learn Arabic. He returned to St. Andrew's for a year (1905-06) to assist the professor of Hebrew, and then became a Carnegie Research Scholar and Fellow before being a lecturer in Arabic at Edinburgh University (1913-21).
He came to Wales as Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages at the University College, Bangor (1921-34), ' Jock ', as he was called, was a popular teacher at Bangor, and he made a gallant attempt at mastering Welsh; he immortalized himself by making a tiny slip and calling Dr Thomas Richards, the well-known College librarian, llyfrgellydd, a llyfrgollydd - 'book-loser'. He was vice-principal of the college (1926-28) and Dean of the Faculty of Theology (1922-34). He left Bangor for the Chair of Semitic Languages at Manchester University (1934-45), where he was also pro-vice-chancellor (1944); he was the Librarian of the John Rylands Library (1949-62). He gained a D.Litt. degree of St. Andrew's in 1913, and received a number of honours: he was Gunning lecturer at Edinburgh University (1929-32), had an hon. D.D. degree of the universities of Wales and St. Andrew, and LL.D. of the University of Manchester, and was made president of the Society for Old Testament Study.
His field was manuscripts in the Semitic languages, on which he published several studies; he also edited the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. After retiring he emigrated to Canada to be with one of his two daughters, and he died there 29 April 1964.
Author
- Reverend Gwilym Henry Jones
- Who was who?
- Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 45 (1963), 273-5; 47 (1964), 1-2
Sources
- Wikipedia Article: Edward Robertson
Further Reading
- Wikidata: Q20746771
Additional Links
Published date: 2001
Article Copyright: http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/
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