John Mitchell Kemble (1807 - 26 March 1857), English scholar and historian, was the eldest son of Charles Kemble the actor and Maria Theresa Kemble.
He received his education partly from Dr Richardson, author of the Dictionary of the English Language, and partly at the grammar school of Bury St Edmunds, where he obtained in 1826 an exhibition to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he became a member of the Cambridge Apostles.[1] At the university his historical essays gained him high reputation.
The bent of his studies was turned more especially towards the Anglo-Saxon period through the influence of one the brothers Grimm, Jacob Grimm, under whom he studied at Göttingen (1831). His thorough knowledge of the Teutonic languages and his critical faculty were shown in his Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf (1833-1837), Über die Stammtafeln der Westsachsen (Munich 1836), Codex diplomaticus aevi Saxonici (London 1839-1848), and in many contributions to reviews; while his History of the Saxons in England (1849; new ed. 1876), though it must now be read with caution, was the first attempt at a thorough examination of the original sources of the early period of English history.
He was editor of the British and Foreign Review from 1835 to 1844; and from 1840 to his death was examiner of plays. In 1857 he published State Papers and Correspondence illustrative of the Social and Political State of Europe from the Revolution to the Accession of the House of Hanover.
His Horae Ferales, or Studies in the Archaeology of Northern Nations, was completed by Dr Robert Gordon Latham, and published in 1864. He married the daughter of Professor Amadeus Wendt of Göttingen in 1836; and had two daughters and a son; the elder daughter was the wife of Sir Charles Santley, the singer.
He died at Dublin on 26 March 1857 and is buried there in Mount Jerome Cemetery.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.