William John Woodhouse

Last updated

William John Woodhouse (7 November 1866 – 26 October 1937) was a classical scholar and author, professor of Greek at the University of Sydney. [1]

University of Sydney university in Sydney, Australia

The University of Sydney is an Australian public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it was Australia's first university and is regarded as one of the world's leading universities. The university is colloquially known as one of Australia's sandstone universities. Its campus is ranked in the top 10 of the world's most beautiful universities by the British Daily Telegraph and The Huffington Post, spreading across the inner-city suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington. The university comprises 9 faculties and university schools, through which it offers bachelor, master and doctoral degrees.

Contents

Early life

Woodhouse was born at Clifton, Westmorland, England, the son of Richard Woodhouse, a station master, and his wife Mary, née Titterington. [1] Educated at Sedbergh School, Yorkshire, Woodhouse won an open exhibition to Queen's College, Oxford, (B.A., 1889; M.A., 1895). [1] He graduated with a first class in classical and a first class in the final school of Literae Humaniores, was appointed a Newton student at the British School at Athens, and during 1890 travelled in Greece and directed the excavations at Megalopolis. [2] After another year at Oxford Woodhouse was elected Craven fellow and returned to Greece for two years, his main work being in connexion with the explorations at Aetolia. Woodhouse was awarded the Conington memorial prize at Oxford in 1894 for an essay which was expanded into a substantial volume, Aetolia. Its Geography, Topography and Antiquities (1897). [2] [3] In 1897 Woodhouse was appointed lecturer in classics at the University College of North Wales, Bangor; on 28 March 1897 at the parish church, Sedbergh, Yorkshire, he married Eleanor Emma Jackson. [1] In 1900 Woodhouse was appointed lecturer in ancient history and political philosophy at the University of St Andrews, Scotland.

Westmorland historic county in England

Westmorland is a historic county in north west England. It formed an administrative county between 1889 and 1974, after which the whole county was administered by the new administrative county of Cumbria. In 2013, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, formally recognised and acknowledged the continued existence of England's 39 historic counties, including Westmorland.

England Country in north-west Europe, part of the United Kingdom

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to the west and Scotland to the north-northwest. The Irish Sea lies west of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.

Sedbergh School co-educational boarding school in Sedbergh, Cumbria, England

Sedbergh School is a co-educational independent boarding school in the town of Sedbergh in Cumbria, in North West England. It comprises a junior school for children aged 4 to 13 and the main school. It was established in 1525.

Career in Australia

Woodhouse became professor of Greek at the University of Sydney in 1901, succeeding Walter Scott and held the chair until his death. [1] Woodhouse was also honorary curator of the Nicholson Museum of Antiquities at the university, which showed considerable development under his care. In 1908 he travelled back to Greece and laid the foundation for a collection of casts of sculpture for the Museum. [1]

Walter Scott was an English classical scholar, professor of classics at the University of Sydney and McGill University, Montreal, Quebec.

Nicholson Museum museum of antiquities at the University of Sydney, Australia

The Nicholson Museum at the University of Sydney is home to the largest collection of antiquities in both Australia and the southern Hemisphere. Founded in 1860, the collection spans the ancient world with primary collection areas including ancient Egypt, Greece, Italy, Cyprus, and the Near East. The Museum gallery is located in the main quadrangle of the University and is open to the public Monday to Friday from 10:00 am to 4:30 pm as well as the first Saturday of every month from 12 to 4 pm. Admission is free.

Woodhouse was a teacher who inspired his students, his broad scholarship was relieved by both wit and humour, and he was a most painstaking researcher. Possibly it was the humility of a true scholar that accounted for so much of his work being delayed publication until his later years. These qualities were recognized by his students and he gained both their respect and affection. He shared in the life of the university, helped in the organization of the union, and for a period was dean of the faculty of arts and a member of the senate. [2] Apart from a few classical textbooks and The Tutorial History of Greece, published in 1904 (fourth impression 1915), Woodhouse for many years published only some contributions to the Journal of Hellenic Studies . Woodhouse brought out The Composition of Homer's Odyssey (1930), a valuable and original contribution to Homeric scholarship. This was followed by King Agis of Sparta and his Campaign in Arkadia in 418 B.C.(1933). His task was to do belated justice to King Agis "one of those born leaders who, taking no counsel of their fears, but accepting with serene self-reliance risks that appal a mediocre mind, compel their astonished adversaries to taste the bitterness of decisive and sometimes humiliating defeat" (p. 125). Woodhouse's adverse criticism of Thucydides's description of the battle of Mantinea did not find universal acceptance, but "he seems to have established that Thucydides's account is highly partisan, designed to show Agis in the role of lucky blunderer". [4]

Homeric scholarship

Homeric scholarship is the study of any Homeric topic, especially the two large surviving epics, the Iliad and Odyssey. It is currently part of the academic discipline of classical studies. The subject is one of the oldest in scholarship. For the purpose of the present article, Homeric scholarship is divided into three main phases: antiquity; the 18th and 19th centuries; and the 20th century and later.

Agis II was the 18th Eurypontid king of Sparta, the eldest son of Archidamus II by his first wife, and half-brother of Agesilaus II. He ruled with his Agiad co-monarch Pausanias.

Thucydides Greek historian and Athenian general

Thucydides was an Athenian historian and general. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" by those who accept his claims to have applied strict standards of impartiality and evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect, without reference to intervention by the deities, as outlined in his introduction to his work.

Late life and legacy

Woodhouse's last book, Solon the Liberator, a Study of the Agrarian problem in Attika in the Seventh Century (published posthumously, 1938) was completed just before his death. [2] Other books were left unfinished. [1]

Woodhouse died of cancer in Gordon, Sydney on 26 October 1937 [1] leaving a widow, a son and a daughter. Woodhouse was the author of The Fight for an Empire, a translation from Tacitus (1931), and was also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Biblica and the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics . [2]

Gordon, New South Wales Suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Gordon is a suburb on the Upper North Shore of Sydney in the state of New South Wales, Australia 15 kilometres (9 mi) north-west of the Sydney Central Business District and is the administrative centre for the local government area of Ku-ring-gai Council. East Gordon is a locality within Gordon and West Gordon within West Pymble.

Tacitus Roman senator and historian

PubliusCornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors. These two works span the history of the Roman Empire from the death of Augustus, in 14 AD, to the years of the First Jewish–Roman War, in 70 AD. There are substantial lacunae in the surviving texts, including a gap in the Annals that is four books long.

Encyclopaedia Biblica: A Critical Dictionary of the Literary, Political and Religion History, the Archeology, Geography and Natural History of the Bible (1899), edited by Thomas Kelly Cheyne and J. Sutherland Black, is a critical encyclopedia of the Bible. In theology and biblical studies, it is often referenced as Enc. Bib., or as Cheyne and Black.

Related Research Articles

Reverend Charles Badham was an English classical philologist, textual critic, headmaster, and university professor, active in England and even more so in Australia.

William Gell English classical archaeologist and illustrator

Sir William Gell FRS was an English classical archaeologist and illustrator.

Edwin Hatch English theologian

Edwin Hatch was an English theologian. He is best known as the author of the book Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages Upon the Christian Church, which was based on the lectures he presented during the 1888 Hibbert Lectures and which were edited and published following his death. He is also remembered as the composer of the hymn "Breathe on Me, Breath of God."

Charles Nicholson Australian politician

Sir Charles Nicholson, 1st Baronet was an English-Australian politician, university founder, explorer, pastoralist, antiquarian and philanthropist. The Nicholson Museum at the University of Sydney is named after him.

Kastraki is a village in Phocis, Greece, part of the municipal unit Efpalio. It is near the left bank of the river Mornos and 3 km from the Gulf of Corinth. It is 3 km (2 mi) west of the village Efpalio and 6 km (4 mi) northeast of the town of Nafpaktos.

Arnold Wycombe Gomme was a British classical scholar, lecturer in ancient Greek and Greek history (1911–1945), professor of ancient Greek, University of Glasgow (1946–1957), Fellow of the British Academy (1947).

Martin John Millett, is a British archaeologist and academic. He is the Laurence Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Cambridge and a professorial fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.

Roger Lupton English priest

.

Paul Jacobsthal was a scholar of Greek vase painting and Celtic art. He wrote his dissertation at the University of Bonn under the supervision of Georg Loeschcke. In 1912 he published a catalog of the Greek vases in Göttingen, and received a position as a professor at the University of Marburg.

Simon Hornblower, FBA is an English classicist and academic. He is Professor of Classics and Ancient History in the University of Oxford and Senior Research Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.

Peter John Rhodes,, usually cited as P. J. Rhodes, is a British academic and ancient historian. He is Professor Emeritus of Ancient History at the University of Durham. He has specialized in Ancient Greek politics and political institutions.

Edward Williams Byron Nicholson was an author and Bodley's Librarian, the head of the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, from 1882 until his death in 1912.

John Henry Middleton British archaeologist

John Henry Middleton was an archaeologist and a museum director.

Bert Hodge Hill was an American archeologist and the director of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens from 1906 to 1926.

Emily Greenwood is a Professor of Classics and African-American Studies and Chair of the Department of Classics at Yale University. Her research focuses on Ancient Greek historiography, particularly Thucydides and Herodotus, and the development of History as a genre and a modern critical discipline. She also explores the appropriation and reinvention of Greco-Roman classical antiquity from the late nineteenth century to the present.

George Beardoe Grundy M.A. Oxon., D.Litt. Oxon. was an English historian, specializing in the military history of ancient Greece and Rome.

James Andrew (7 September 1829 – 21 April 1897 was an English physician and lecturer on medicine, known as an outstanding teacher.

Denys Eyre Lankester Haynes was an English classical scholar, archaeologist, and museum curator, who specialised in the full range of classical archaeology. He was Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum between 1956 and 1976. He was additionally Geddes–Harrower Professor of Greek Art and Archaeology at the University of Aberdeen from 1972 to 1973, and, in retirement, visitor to the Ashmolean Museum from 1979 to 1987. He had served in military intelligence during the Second World War.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 L. F. Fitzhardinge, 'Woodhouse, William John (1866 - 1937)', Australian Dictionary of Biography , Volume 12, Melbourne University Press, 1990, pp 561-562. Retrieved 17 March 2010
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Serle, Percival (1949). "Woodhouse, William John". Dictionary of Australian Biography . Sydney: Angus and Robertson. Retrieved 2010-03-17.
  3. ↑ "Aetolia; its geography, topography, and antiquities". archive.org . Retrieved May 20, 2017.
  4. ↑ The Times , 28 October 1937
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.