John Mitchell Kemble

Quality 0.50 · 2 views · Updated 2 months ago

English scholar and historian (1807–1857)

title: "John Mitchell Kemble" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["translators-from-old-english", "1807-births", "1857-deaths", "anglo-saxon-studies-scholars", "burials-at-mount-jerome-cemetery-and-crematorium", "alumni-of-trinity-college,-cambridge", "19th-century-english-translators", "kemble-family"] description: "English scholar and historian (1807–1857)" topic_path: "people/1800s" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mitchell_Kemble" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary English scholar and historian (1807–1857) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox academic"]

FieldValue
nameJohn Mitchell Kemble
imageJohn Mitchell Kemble 1807-1857.jpg
captionLithograph portrait miniature of John Mitchell Kemble in 1841 (age 34) from a family series by Richard James Lane.
birth_date2 April 1807
death_date26 March 1857
occupationMedievalism, Philology
alma_materTrinity College, Cambridge
disciplineHistory, Philology
sub_disciplineAnglo Saxon Studies
websitehttps://dk.robinson.cam.ac.uk/
::

| name = John Mitchell Kemble | image = John Mitchell Kemble 1807-1857.jpg | caption = Lithograph portrait miniature of John Mitchell Kemble in 1841 (age 34) from a family series by Richard James Lane. | birth_date = 2 April 1807 | death_date = 26 March 1857 | occupation = Medievalism, Philology | alma_mater = Trinity College, Cambridge | discipline = History, Philology | sub_discipline = Anglo Saxon Studies | website = https://dk.robinson.cam.ac.uk/

John Mitchell Kemble (2 April 1807 – 26 March 1857), English scholar and historian, was the eldest son of Charles Kemble the actor and Maria Theresa Kemble. He is known for his major contribution to the history of the Anglo-Saxons and philology of the Old English language, including one of the first translations of Beowulf.

Anglo-Saxon charters are often referred to by the 'Kemble' or 'KCD' (e.g. Kemble Codex Diplomaticus) numbers.

Education

Kemble received his education from Charles Richardson and at Bury St Edmunds grammar school, where he obtained in 1826 an exhibition to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he became a member of the Cambridge Apostles. As a law student, his historical essays were well received but he "would not follow the course of study prescribed by the university and was, moreover, fond of society and of athletic amusements", which caused the deferral of his graduation in 1829. His Bachelor of Arts degree was granted in March 1830, and his M.A. degree three years later in March 1833.

Anglo-Saxon studies

Kemble concentrated on Anglo-Saxon England, through the influence of Jacob Grimm, under whom he studied at Göttingen (1831). He published Anglo-Saxon Poems of Beowulf (1833–1837), Über die Stammtafeln der Westsachsen (Munich 1836), Codex diplomaticus aevi Saxonici (London 1839–1848), and made many contributions to reviews; his History of the Saxons in England (1849; new ed. 1876) was based on original sources for the early period of English history.

Kemble's "literal" Beowulf translation was entirely in prose.

::data[format=table title="'''[[Grendel]] reaches [[Heorot]]: ''[[Beowulf]]'' 710–714'''"]

Old English verseKemble's prose
Ðá cóm of móreunder misthleoþum
* The prose does not attempt to follow the original's order in words or phrases.
::

He was editor of the British and Foreign Review from 1835 to 1844; and from 1840 to his death was Examiner of Plays. In 1857 he published State Papers and Correspondence Illustrative of the Social and Political State of Europe from the Revolution to the Accession of the House of Hanover.

His Horae Ferales, or Studies in the Archaeology of Northern Nations was completed by Robert Gordon Latham, and published in 1864.

Marriage and death

Kemble married Nathalie Auguste, daughter of Amadeus Wendt of the University of Göttingen, in about 1836. They had two daughters and a son, but the marriage was not a happy one and they were living apart by about 1850. The elder daughter, Gertrude (b. 1837) married Sir Charles Santley, the singer, and died in 1882.

Kemble died at Dublin on 26 March 1857 and is buried there in Mount Jerome Cemetery.

Notable Works

  • Covers numbers 1-240.
  • Covers numbers 241-527.
  • Covers numbers 528-726.
  • Covers numbers 727-981.
  • Covers numbers 982-1217.
  • Covers numbers 1218-1369.

References

References

  1. Brooks, Nicholas. (December 1974). "Anglo-Saxon charters: the work of the last twenty years". Anglo-Saxon England.
  2. "Electronic Sawyer: About the Electronic Sawyer".
  3. {{EB1911
  4. {{acad
  5. Hunt, William (1892). "[[wikisource:Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900/Kemble, John Mitchell. Kemble, John Mitchell]]" In ''Dictionary of National Biography''. '''30'''. London. pp. 369-372
  6. ''The Essex County Standard'', 30 March 1833, p. 4.
  7. Kemble, John M.. (1837). "A Translation of the Anglo-Saxon Poem of Beowulf with a copious glossary preface and philological notes". William Pickering.
  8. Hunt, Rev. William. [https://archive.org/stream/dictionarynatio54stepgoog#page/n378/mode/2up Kemble, John Mitchell (1807–1857)] Entry in ''[[Dictionary of National Biography]]'' ed. Sidney Lee, v. 30 (1892)

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

translators-from-old-english1807-births1857-deathsanglo-saxon-studies-scholarsburials-at-mount-jerome-cemetery-and-crematoriumalumni-of-trinity-college,-cambridge19th-century-english-translatorskemble-family