Edith Thompson (historian)

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Edith Thompson (1848-1929) was a historian and lexicographer.^[1] She wrote "History of England"^[2] the second volume of the "Historical Course for Schools", which was devised and edited by Edward Freeman,^[3] with whom she corresponded regularly.^[4]

She was also a prolific contributor to the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.^[5]^[6] Along with her sister, Elizabeth Perronet Thompson, she provided 15,000 quotations for the dictionary.^[7] She also subedited the volume for "C" words and proofread volumes from "D" words onwards.^[8]

Thompson was barred from university, as a woman, but did receive some recognition as an Honorary Member of the Bath branch of the National Federation of University Women. She and her sister, Elizabeth Thompson (1857-1930) lived at Beaconsfield Lodge in Bath. Elizabeth published a historical novel "The Veil of Liberty, A Tale of the Girondins" (1895) under her penname "Peronne" and "A Dragoon's Wife, A Romance of the 17th Century" (1907) under her own name.

Thompson was the granddaughter of Thomas Perronet Thompson, a notable abolitionist, about whom she wrote a biography that went unpublished.^[9]

In popular culture

Edith Thompson is a major character in Pip Williams' novel The Dictionary of Lost Words, where she mentors a fictional goddaughter who works on the Oxford English Dictionary.^[10]

References

^ Howsam, Leslie (2004). "Academic Discipline or Literary Genre?: The Establishment of Boundaries in Historical Writing". Victorian Literature and Culture. 32 (2): 525–545. doi:10.1017/S1060150304000646. JSTOR 25058684. S2CID 146501535 – via JSTOR.
^ Thompson, E. (1874) History of England, Macmillan
^ "New Publications". New England Journal of Education. 1 (9): 108. 1875. JSTOR 44763792 – via JSTOR.
^ "Letters from Edward Augustus Freeman to Edith Thompson - Archives Hub". archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk.
^ "Contributors". Oxford English Dictionary.
^ Winchester, S. (2003) The Meaning of Everything: The story of the Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, Oxford
^ "Women and the dictionary, Part I: Assistants and volunteers". Murray Scriptorium. Retrieved 2023-12-19.
^ "They Changed Language History. It's Time To Learn Their Names". Dictionary.com. Retrieved 2023-12-19.
^ "Papers of Thomas Perronet Thompson - Archives Hub". archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk.
^ "A Thought-Provoking Novel that Revels in the Power of Words". Penguin Random House. Retrieved 2023-12-19.

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