Charles Wycliffe Goodwin

Charles Wycliffe Goodwin (1817–1878) was a British Egyptologist, bible scholar, lawyer and judge. His last judicial position was as Acting Chief Judge of the British Supreme Court for China and Japan.

Early Life

Goodwin was born in 1817 in King's Lynn, Norfolk. He studied at St Catherine's College, Cambridge and graduated, in 1838, 6th Classic and senior optime in Mathematics. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1843.

Academic Interests

Goodwin contributed to the publications of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society and in 1860 wrote one of the articles in Essays and Reviews, to which he was the only lay contributor, writing alongside such great theologians as Rowland Williams and Henry Bristow Wilson.

In a speech, "The Growth and Nature of Egyptology: an inaugural lecture" by Stephen Ranulph Kingdon Glanville (published by Cambridge University Press), Glanville said of Goodwin:

"By the time Goodwin left Cambridge, he was a first class Greek scholar, an accomplished Hebraist, and an authority on Anglo-Saxon with valuable editions of new texts to his credit. He also had a considerably knowledge of natural history, especially geology. In London, where his practice was not large, he wrote music and art criticism; was for a time editor of Literary Gazette; was the only layman among the seven contributors to the much talked of Essays and Reviews (1860); and, because of his Greek and Hebrew scholarship, was frequently consulted by the Revisers of the New Testament. But throughout his life, his main interest, begun when he was at school was in the elucidation of Ancient Egyptian and Coptic texts, more especially those Egyptian texts written in the cursive script called hieratic.

In London, he spent much of his time in the British Museum, copying papyri. He was in close touch with Samuel Birch, then Keeper of the Oriental Department and was constantly exchanging information by correspondence with other leading Egyptologists of his day."

Appointment as Judge in China

Goodwin was appointed Assistant Judge of the British Supreme Court for China and Japan in 1865 on the founding of the court. The British Supreme Court for China and Japan exercised jurisdiction over British Subjects in China and Japan pursuant to extraterritorial rights granted under treaties with China and Japan. The Court was also an appellate court from British Consular Courts in China and Japan.

Goodwin served as assistant judge to Sir Edmund Hornby. Goodwin was based in Shanghai until 1874. In that year he moved to Yokohama where he was based until early 1877 when he returned to Shanghai. Goodwin became Acting Chief Judge in 1876 after Edmund Hornby retired.

Death

Goodwin died in Shanghai in 1878. He was buried in the Shanghai Cemetery (Pahsienjao Cemetery) in Shanghai.^[1]

Works

• Ed. and tr. The Anglo-Saxon Version of the Life of St. Guthlac, Hermit of Crowland. London, 1848. Edition of the Old English adaptation of Felix's Latin Life of St Guthlac. PDF downloads available from Google Books and Internet Archive
• Ed. and tr. Anglo-Saxon Legends of St Andrew and St Veronica. Cambridge Antiquarian Society. Cambridge, 1851. Editions of Old English prose lives of St Andrew (Blickling Homily 19) and St Veronica (Vindicta Salvatoris). Available from Google Books here (Harvard scan) and here (Oxford scan).

References

•  Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney, eds. (1890). "Goodwin, Charles Wycliffe". Dictionary of National Biography 22. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 

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