Fitzedward Hall was an American Orientalist and philologist.
12 Facts About Fitzedward Hall
1.
2.
Fitzedward Hall was the first American to edit a Sanskrit text, and was an early collaborator in the Oxford English Dictionary project.
3.
Fitzedward Hall graduated with the degree of civil engineer from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy in 1842, and entered Harvard in the class of 1846.
4.
Fitzedward Hall's ship foundered and was wrecked on its approach to the harbor of Calcutta, where he found himself stranded.
5.
Fitzedward Hall had become an expert tiger shooter, and turned this proficiency to account during the siege of the fort, and afterwards as a volunteer in the struggle for the re-establishment of the British power in India.
6.
Fitzedward Hall settled in England and in 1862 received the appointment to the Chair of Sanskrit, Hindustani and Indian jurisprudence in King's College London, and to the librarianship of the India Office.
7.
Fitzedward Hall gave his collection of a thousand Oriental manuscripts to Harvard.
8.
In 1869 Fitzedward Hall was dismissed by the India Office, which accused him of being a drunk and a foreign spy, and expelled from the Philological Society after a series of acrimonious exchanges in the letters columns of various journals.
9.
Fitzedward Hall then moved to Suffolk where, while leading the life of a recluse, he published more philological work.
10.
Fitzedward Hall's task was to read certain books looking for examples of the use of particular words, and then to send the relevant quotations to Murray's staff.
11.
Fitzedward Hall was best at supplementing existing quotation collections for particular words.
12.
Fitzedward Hall died at Marlesford, Suffolk, on 1 February 1901.