Henry Bradley

A philologist, lexicographer, and second editor of the Oxford English Dictionary from 1888 until his death, Bradley was born in Manchester, and largely self-educated, having attended grammar school only until the age of fourteen. He was employed as a corresponding clerk for a Sheffield cutlery firm from 1863 to 1883. During these years, he pursued his philological interests, mastering modern European and classical languages, and acquiring a knowledge of Hebrew.

His quiet manner was a contrast to Murray's occasionally volatile temperament

In 1884, for economic reasons and out of concern for his wife's health, he moved to London where he undertook miscellaneous literary work, mainly writing book reviews. In the same year, his review of the first part of the recently published New English Dictionary (later the Oxford English Dictionary) demonstrated such an unusual knowledge of philology that Murray began consulting him on etymological problems. In 1886, Bradley was employed by the Delegates of Oxford University Press to assist with the letter B, and in January 1888 he was appointed as the Dictionary's second editor. He continued to work in London, using a room provided by the British Museum, with his own staff. Finally in 1896, he moved to Oxford, although he, and the two subsequent editors, worked separately from Murray in quarters allocated to them in the Old Ashmolean Museum.

Bradley's forty years' work on the Dictionary encompassed the letters E-G, L-M, S-Sh (a section which included the longest entry ‘set’), St, and part of W. Bradley was a modest, unassuming scholar; although their backgrounds were similar, his quiet manner was a contrast to Murray's occasionally volatile temperament, and their methods were quite different. Onions, who worked under both men before becoming the fourth editor contrasted Murray's formal, schoolmasterly instruction with Bradley, the ‘philosophical exponent’, who taught ‘by hint, by interjectional phrase, or even a burst of laughter’.

In 1891, Bradley's work on the Dictionary was recognized with an honorary MA from Oxford, and in 1914, both he and Murray received honorary D.Litts. Bradley became senior editor after Murray died in 1915 and continued to work on the Dictionary until his own sudden death in 1923.

The quotation shown here was almost certainly sought out and written down by Bradley for make v.(1), where it appears at sense 11. The slip reads: ‘1886 T. Le M. Douse Introd. Gothic 167 Wahsja..makes in the present 2 p[erson] s[ingular] wahseis.’