William Wotton facts for kids

William Wotton (13 August 1666 – 13 February 1727) was an English theologian, classical scholar and linguist. He is chiefly remembered for his remarkable abilities in learning languages and for his involvement in the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns. In Wales he is remembered as the collector and first translator of the ancient Welsh laws.

Life

Early years

William Wotton was the second son of the Rev. Henry Wotton, rector of Wrentham, Suffolk. He was a child prodigy who could read verses from the Bible in English, Latin, Greek and Hebrew before he was six. In April 1676, when he was not yet ten years old, he was sent to Catharine Hall, Cambridge, and graduated in 1679. By this time Wotton had acquired Arabic, Syriac, and Aramaic, as well as a knowledge of logic, philosophy, mathematics, geography, chronology, and history. His parents died whilst he was still at Cambridge, and as a teenager he was taken into the household of Gilbert Burnet, later bishop of Salisbury. He was awarded a fellowship at St John's College, from where he obtained an M.A. in 1683 and a B.D. in 1691. In 1686 he was appointed curate of Brimpton in Berkshire and the following year he was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In January 1689 he was appointed vicar of Lacock in Wiltshire, which he held until his resignation in 1693. Soon after ordination he was also appointed chaplain to Daniel Finch Earl of Nottingham, and tutor to his family. Finch presented him with the rectory of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, in 1693.

Studies in Wales

Whilst at Carmarthen, Wotton reformed his character and returned to his studies. He was also able to re-establish his friendship with Wake, who had become Archbishop of Canterbury in December 1715.

Wotton began to study Welsh, and produced an important bilingual parallel text edition of the Welsh and Latin texts of the medieval Welsh laws traditionally attributed to Hywel Dda at the request of his friend. To do this he had first to identify and obtain transcripts of a fifteen or so known manuscripts in either Latin or Mediaeval Welsh, and establish a text, and then begin the difficult task of translating the Mediaeval Welsh terminology which appeared in both the Latin and Welsh versions, but the meaning of which had been lost by the 18th century. From 1721 Wotton was assisted by the Welsh scholar Moses Williams. Wotton lived to complete the translation but was working on an accompanying glossary when he died. This was completed by Williams, and the whole work was published in 1730 by his son-in-law William Clarke in a large folio edition under the title Leges Wallicae.

Whilst at Carmarthen he also conducted surveys of the cathedrals of St David's and Llandaff which were published by his friend Browne Willis in 1717 and 1718. He published Miscellaneous Discourses relating to the Traditions and Usages of the Scribes and Pharisees which included a translation of part of the Mishnah in (1718).

Death

Wotton had repaid his creditors and was able to return to Bath in October 1721 and London in June 1722 but was in very poor health. He was still working on his Leges Wallicae, when he died of dropsy at Buxted, Sussex, on 13 February 1727.