Contribution Towards a Glossary of the Glynne Language


Book Description

The Glynnese Glossary is that rare beast, a dictionary of a family language. Many families develop favourite words and phrases, giving them unique meanings based on passing events or encounters. For the most part these fade into oblivion with the death of their users. The families of William Gladstone, several times Prime Minister of England, and of his wife Catherine Glynne, however, developed an unusually rich and persistent language; and this was recorded in the Glossary in 1851 by Gladstone's brother-in-law George, Lord Lyttelton, who married Catherine Glynne's sister Mary. Glynnese can be traced through generations of family memoirs, and the families' lofty social status led to its being taken up by outsiders. Lyttelton was a talented student of language, and in the Glossary he draws on the contemporary popularity of philology to produce a spoof dictionary which parodies the tradition of dialect glossaries, while accurately recording the eccentric vagaries of Glynnese. George William, 4th Baron Lyttelton (1817-76) was educated at Eton and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was Senior Classic (top of the first class in Classics) in 1838. In 1839 he and William Gladstone married the sisters Mary and Catherine Glynne in a double wedding conducted by the brides' father. He had eight sons and four daughters, and a further three daughters by his second wife. Lyttelton and Gladstone were both keen composers in Latin and Greek, and published a book of translations from English literature together in 1861. Lyttelton devoted much of his life to public service, especially in education, sitting on two Royal Commissions in the 1860s. He was a manic depressive, and committed suicide in 1876.




Contributions Towards a Glossary of the Glynne Language


Book Description

The Glynnese Glossary is that rare beast, a dictionary of a family language. Many families develop favourite words and phrases, giving them unique meanings based on passing events or encounters. For the most part these fade into oblivion with the death of their users. The families of William Gladstone, several times Prime Minister of England, and of his wife Catherine Glynne, however, developed an unusually rich and persistent language; and this was recorded in the Glossary in 1851 by Gladstone's brother-in-law George, Lord Lyttelton, who married Catherine Glynne's sister Mary. Glynnese can be traced through generations of family memoirs, and the families' lofty social status led to its being taken up by outsiders. Lyttelton was a talented student of language, and in the Glossary he draws on the contemporary popularity of philology to produce a spoof dictionary which parodies the tradition of dialect glossaries, while accurately recording the eccentric vagaries of Glynnese. George William, 4th Baron Lyttelton (1817-76) was educated at Eton and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was Senior Classic (top of the first class in Classics) in 1838. In 1839 he and William Gladstone married the sisters Mary and Catherine Glynne in a double wedding conducted by the brides' father. He had eight sons and four daughters, and a further three daughters by his second wife. Lyttelton and Gladstone were both keen composers in Latin and Greek, and published a book of translations from English literature together in 1861. Lyttelton devoted much of his life to public service, especially in education, sitting on two Royal Commissions in the 1860s. He was a manic depressive, and committed suicide in 1876.




Classics Transformed


Book Description

The first book to give a general account of the transformation of classics in English schools and universities from being the amateur knowledge of the Victorian gentleman to that of the professional scholar, from an elite social marker to a marginalized academic subject. The challenges to the authority of classics in 19th-century England are analysed, as is the wide range of ideological responses by its practitioners. The impact of university reform on the content and organization of classical knowledge is described in detail, with special reference to Cambridge. Chapters are devoted to the effects of state intervention, social snobbery and democracy on the provision of classics in schools, and the dissensions within the bodies set up to defend it. The narrative is carried through to the abolition of Compulsory Latin in 1960 and the absence of classics from the National Curriculum in 1988.