Richard Morris

Richard Morris (8 September 1833 – 12 May 1894), was an English philologist and priest of the Church of England. Early life and career Morris was born at Bermondsey on 8 September 1833, of Welsh parentage. He was trained as an elementary schoolmaster at St John's College, Battersea, but his education was for the most part self-acquired. In 1869, he was appointed Winchester lecturer on English language and literature in King's College School. In 1871, he was ordained, and served for two years as curate of Christ Church, Camberwell. From 1875 to 1888 he served as headmaster of the Royal Masonic School for Boys at Wood Green, and afterwards for a short time master of the grammar school of Dedham, Essex. His diploma of LL.D. was a Lambeth degree, conferred in 1870 by Archbishop Tait. Scholarship and publications As early as 1857, Morris showed the bent of his mind by publishing a little book on The Etymology of Local Names. He was one of the first to join as an active member the Chaucer, Early English, and Philological societies, founded by his lifelong friend, Dr F. J. Furnivall. None of his colleagues surpassed him in the devotion which he expended upon editing the oldest remains of our national literature from the original manuscript sources, on the same scientific principles as adopted by classical scholars. Between 1862 and 1880, he brought out no fewer than twelve volumes for the Early English Text Society, including three series of Homilies (1868 onwards) and two of Alliterative Poems (1864). In 1866, he edited Chaucer for the Aldine Poets (2nd ed. 1891). This was the first edition to be based upon manuscripts since that of Thomas Tyrwhitt, and remained the standard one until it was superseded by W. W. Skeat's edition of 1894–7. In 1869, he edited Edmund Spenser for Macmillan's Globe edition, again using manuscripts as well as the original editions. In 1867, he published Specimens of Early English for the Clarendon Press, Oxford, which was augmented by Skeat in later editions. Morris's long experience as a schoolmaster also prompted him to undertake a series of successful educational works. The first was Historical Outlines of English Accidence (1872), which went through some twenty editions, before being thoroughly revised after the author's death by Henry Bradley and Leon Kellner.