The Professorship in Latin at University College London (UCL) is one of the original professorships at UCL. Along with the Professorship in Greek, the chair dates back to the foundations of the university in the 1820s. [1] The first holder was the Rev. John Williams, "but he resigned in June, 1828, in deference to the opposition of his ecclesiastical superiors to the secular character of the university". [2] Williams was succeeded by T. Hewitt Key, who was a founder of University College School and served as Head Master as well as Professor. [3] The chair, which is a full-time position, has been occupied by a series of distinguished scholars including J. R. Seeley, Robinson Ellis, A. E. Housman, H. E. Butler, Otto Skutsch, George Goold, and Malcolm Willcock.
The following have held the chair of Latin: [4]
Alfred Edward Housman was an English classical scholar and poet. After an initially poor performance while at university, he took employment as a clerk in London and established his academic reputation by publishing as a private scholar at first. Later Housman was appointed Professor of Latin at University College London and then at the University of Cambridge. He is now acknowledged as one of the foremost classicists of his age and has been ranked as one of the greatest scholars of any time. His editions of Juvenal, Manilius, and Lucan are still considered authoritative.
University College London, which operates as UCL, is a public research university in London, England. It is a member institution of the federal University of London, and is the second-largest university in the United Kingdom by total enrolment and the largest by postgraduate enrolment.
Marcus Manilius was a Roman poet, astrologer, and author of a poem in five books called Astronomica.
Alan Douglas Edward Cameron, was a British classicist and academic. He was Charles Anthon Professor Emeritus of the Latin Language and Literature at Columbia University, New York. He was one of the leading scholars of the literature and history of the later Roman world and at the same time a wide-ranging classical philologist whose work encompassed above all the Greek and Latin poetic tradition from Hellenistic to Byzantine times but also aspects of late antique art.
Sir William Duguid Geddes was a Scottish scholar and educationalist, who promoted the cause of classical Greek at the University of Aberdeen and later became Principal. Geddes's classical translations, grammars and scholarship contributed to publications both written with collaborators and edited in series. One of the outstanding scholars of his generation in Scotland, he was the architect of the fusion of the modern University of Aberdeen and its High Victorian development.
John Burnet, FBA was a Scottish classicist. He was born in Edinburgh and died in St Andrews.
Geoffrey Stephen Kirk, was a British classicist who served as the 35th Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge. He published widely on pre-Socratic philosophy and the work of the Greek poet Homer, culminating in a six-volume philological commentary on the Iliad published between 1985 and 1993.
The Digital Classicist is a community of those interested in the application of digital humanities to the field of classics and to ancient world studies more generally. The project claims the twin aims of bringing together scholars and students with an interest in computing and the ancient world, and disseminating advice and experience to the classics discipline at large. The Digital Classicist was founded in 2005 as a collaborative project based at King's College London and the University of Kentucky, with editors and advisors from the classics discipline at large.
University College London (UCL) was founded on 11 February 1826, under the name London University, as a secular alternative to the strictly religious universities of Oxford and Cambridge. It was founded with the intention from the beginning of it being a university, not a college or institute. However its founders encountered strong opposition from the Church of England, the existing universities and the medical schools which prevented them from securing the Royal Charter under the title of "university" that would grant "London University" official recognition and allow it to award degrees. It was not until 1836, when the latter-day University of London was established, that it was legally recognised and granted the authority to submit students for the degree examinations of the University of London.
Quain Professor is the professorship title for certain disciplines at University College London, England. The title honours Richard Quain, who became Professor of Anatomy in 1832 at what would become University College, London. Quain left a legacy to the university to endow professorships in four subjects in 1887. He intended that the funding should recognise his brother, John Richard Quain, as well as himself.
William Wyse was a classical scholar, noted for his work on the Attic orator Isaeus, and a benefactor of the University of Cambridge.
Andrew Fleming West was an American classicist, and first dean of the Graduate School at Princeton University.
The Professorship in Greek was one of the original professorships of University College London (UCL) in 1828. The position was established at the same time as the Professorship in Latin. The inaugural lecture of the first incumbent was delivered on November 1, 1830. The teaching of classical Greek at the new University of London "challenged both the monopoly and the style of Oxbridge classics". Since the Second World War the chair has been occupied by a series of renowned scholars including T. B. L. Webster, Eric Handley, P. E. Easterling, Richard Janko, and Chris Carey. P. E. Easterling is the only woman to have held the position.
Otto Skutsch was a German-born British classicist and academic, specialising in classical philosophy. He was Professor of Latin at University College London from 1951 to 1972.
Maria Wyke is professor of Latin at University College, London. She is a specialist in Latin love poetry, classical reception studies, and the interpretation of the roles of men and women in the ancient world. She has also written widely on the role of the figure of Julius Caesar in Western culture.
The Astronomica, also known as the Astronomicon, is a Latin didactic poem about celestial phenomena, written in hexameters and divided into five books. The Astronomica was written c. AD 30–40 by a Roman poet whose name was likely Marcus Manilius; little is known of Manilius, and although there is evidence that the Astronomica was probably read by many other Roman writers, no surviving works explicitly quote him.
Agnata Frances Butler was a British classics scholar. She was among the first generation of women to take the Classical Tripos examinations at the University of Cambridge, and was the only person to be placed in the top division of the first class at the end of her third year, in 1887. She married the Master of Trinity College, Henry Montagu Butler, in August 1888, becoming the leading hostess in Cambridge. She published a version of Book VII of Herodotus' Histories in 1891.
Arthur Gray Butler (1831–1909) was an English academic and cleric, the first headmaster of Haileybury College.
Nicholas Mark Horsfall was a British scholar of Latin literature. Educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he worked as a lecturer at University College London, but retired in 1987. He was a specialist on the works of the Roman poet Vergil and published five commentaries (2000–2013) on individual books of his Aeneid. This series of commentaries was described by the Latinist James O'Hara as "one of the most remarkably productive and rich periods of publication of any modern classicist".
Harold Edgeworth Butler was a British classicist. He was Professor of Latin at University College, London in succession to A. E. Housman from 1911 until his retirement.