FURNIVALL, FREDERICK JAMES English philologist and editor, was born at Egham, Surrey, on Feb. 4, 1825, the son of a surgeon. He gave Frederick Denison Maurice valuable assistance in the Christian Socialist movement, and was one of the founders of the Working Men's College, Lon don. During half a century he promoted the study of early Eng lish literature, partly by his own work as editor, and partly by the foundation of learned societies, especially the Early English Text Society (1864), the Chaucer, Ballad, New Shakespeare and Wyclif Societies, and at a later period societies for the special study of Browning and Shelley. He edited texts for the Early English Text Society, for the Roxburghe Club and the Rolls Series. His most important work was his "Six-Text" edition of the Canterbury Tales. He was the honorary secretary of the Philological Society, and was one of the original promoters of the Oxford New English Dictionary. He co-operated with its first editor, Herbert Cole ridge, and after his death was for some time principal editor during the preliminary period of the collection of material. Dr. Furnivall was always an enthusiastic oarsman, and till the end kept up his interest in rowing; with John Beesley in 1845 he introduced the new type of narrow sculling boat, and in 1886 started races on the Thames for sculling fours and sculling eights. He died on July 2, 1910.
See Frederick James Furnivall: A Volume of Personal Record (191I).