Richard Morris (philology)

Richard Morris (8 September 1833 – 12 May 1894), was an English philologist.

Morris was born in London. In 1871 he was ordained in the Church of England, and from 1875-1888 was head master of the Royal Masonic Institution for Boys, near London. His first published work was The Etymology of Local Names (1857).

Between 1862 and 1880 he prepared twelve volumes for the Early English Text Society, edited the work of Geoffrey Chaucer (1866) and Edmund Spenser (1869) from the original manuscripts, and published Specimens of Early English (1867).

His educational works, Historical Outlines of English Accidence (1872), Elementary Lessons in Historical English Grammar (1874) and English Grammar (1874), had a large sale and exercised a real influence.

The rest of his life he devoted to the study of Pali, on which he became a recognized authority. He died at Harold Wood, Essex.

Sources

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainChisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.