Wallace Martin Lindsay (1858 – 21 February 1937) was a one of the leading classical scholars of the late 19th and early 20th century. He was Professor of Humanity at St Andrews University. He also wrote articles in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
W. M. Lindsay was born in Pittenweem, Fife, where his father was a Free Church minister. He was educated at Edinburgh Academy, Glasgow University and Balliol College, Oxford. He was Blackstone scholar at Glasgow. He was a Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford from 1880 to 1899, when he was appointed as Professor of Humanity (as the professorship in Latin was called) at St Andrews University.
Lindsay wrote numerous studies, covering a range of topics in Latin from the works of Plautus and Martial to the development of medieval Latin. Some of his books were translated into French and German.[1]
He pioneered the study of Latin (and Celtic) words. Through prolific scholarship and editing a large number of texts, including Plautus, Terence, Martial in the OCT, and Festus, and Nonius Marcellus in Teubner editions, he influenced almost every area of Latin research.[2]