ALFORD, HENRY (181 71) , English divine and scholar, was born in London on Oct. 7, 181o, of a Somersetshire family which had given five consecutive generations of clergymen to the Church of England. He was a precocious lad who wrote Latin odes and a history of the Jews before he was ten. He graduated from Trinity college, Cambridge, in 1832, being 34th wrangler and 8th classic, and in 1834 became a fellow of his college. Alford was vicar of Wymeswold (183 , preached at Quebec chapel in London (1853-57) and was dean of Canterbury from 1857 to his death on Jan. 12, 1871.
Dean Alford was a man of many and varied accomplishments. He published some volumes of verse, wrote some popular hymns, and was the first editor of the Contemporary Review. But his chief fame rests upon his monumental edition of the New Testa ment in Greek, which occupied him from 1841 to 1861. In this work he first brought before English students a careful collation of the readings of the chief mss., and the researches of the ripest continental scholarship of his day. Though more recent research, patristic and papyral, has largely changed the method of New Testament exegesis, Alford's work is still a quarry where the student can dig with a good deal of profit.
His Life, written by his widow, appeared in 1873 (Rivington).