William Gunion Rutherford

William Gunion Rutherford. Caricature ( Vanity Fair , March 3, 1898)

William Gunion Rutherford (born July 17, 1853 in Mountain Cross , Peeblesshire , † July 19, 1907 in Little Hallands near Bishopstone , East Sussex ) was a Scottish classical philologist and from 1883 to 1901 head (Headmaster) of the Westminster School .

life and work

William Gunion Rutherford, the son of a clergyman, attended high school in Glasgow and studied natural sciences and classical philology, first at the University of St Andrews (with Lewis Campbell ), from 1872 at Balliol College in Oxford , where he graduated with a master's degree.

From 1876 Rutherford taught at St Paul's School in London and also occupied himself with Attic grammar and style , especially with verbal inflection . His goal was a scientifically well-founded Greek language teaching in schools, because at that time Greek teaching in English schools not only conveyed non-classical, but also linguistically impossible forms and expressions. Rutherford's Elementary Greek Grammar (1878) had a considerable influence on the methods used in Greek teaching. A few years later, his annotated edition of the grammarist Phrynichos appeared , which was at the same time a study of the classical Attic usage and became known far beyond specialist circles. In the following years, Rutherford published other annotated editions and translations, including Babrios (1883), Thucydides (fourth book, 1889), Herodas (1892) and Paul's letter to the Romans (1900). The University of St Andrews awarded him an honorary doctorate (LL.D.) for his services .

In 1883 Rutherford received two offers: a job as a tutor at Oxford and the direction of Westminster School . He chose Westminster and worked there for 18 years. He continued his scientific work uninterruptedly and for this purpose came into contact with foreign philologists, including Carel Gabriel Cobet and Hans Graeven , who compared various Aristophanes manuscripts in Italy for him . Rutherford's greatest project was an edition of the Aristophanes Scholien , for which he collected material for years. Due to the constant work and the critical reactions to the first two volumes of the edition (1892), his health deteriorated noticeably, so that he retired in 1901. He and his family moved to their Little Hallands country house near Bishopstone , East Sussex . He continued his research until he died shortly after his 54th birthday.

Fonts (selection)

• First Greek Grammar: accidence and syntax . London 1878. Numerous reprints
• The new Phrynichus. Being a revised text of the Ecloga of the grammarian Phrynichus . London 1881. Reprinted in Hildesheim 1968
• Babrius. Edited with introductory dissertations, critical notes, commentary, and lexicon . London 1883
• The Thucydides: a revision of the fourth text illustrating the principal causes of corruption in the manuscripts of the author . London 1889
• Ἡρώνδου Μιμίαμβοι / Herondas: A first recension . London 1891
• Scholia Aristophanica: Being such comments adscript to the text of Aristophanes as have been preserved in the Codex Ravennas, arranged, emended, and translated . Three volumes, London 1896–1906
• St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans: a new translation with a brief analysis . London 1900
• The Key of Knowledge: sermons preached in abbey to Westminster boys . London 1901
• St. Paul's Epistles to the Thessalonians and to the Corinthians: a new translation . London 1908

literature

• James Gow : WG Rutherford . In: Annual report on the progress of classical antiquity . Volume 141, Berlin 1909 = Biographical Yearbook for Archeology . 31st year (1908), pp. 124–126

Web links

• Literature by William Gunion Rutherford in the catalog of the German National Library