James Murray
1837–1915 · Lexicographer; primary editor of the Oxford English Dictionary
Scottish-born self-taught philologist, primary editor of the OED 1879–1915. Built the Scriptorium in his garden at 78 Banbury Road. Knighted 1908. Buried at Wolvercote.
James Augustus Henry Murray was a Scottish-born, largely self-taught philologist who, on 1 March 1879, signed the agreement that made him primary editor of what became the Oxford English Dictionary. He held the editorship until his death in 1915, organising over a thousand volunteer readers worldwide and processing the millions of quotation slips that built the first edition of the dictionary.
To house the work, Murray had a corrugated-iron Scriptorium built in the back garden of 78 Banbury Road in North Oxford; a blue plaque on the house records the connection. He was knighted in 1908 and granted an Oxford honorary doctorate in the year before his death. He is buried in Wolvercote Cemetery, where he had asked to lie beside his friend the Sinologist James Legge — one of several scholarly graves in the cemetery that have made it Oxford's quietest open-air archive.
Sources: Wikipedia: James Murray (lexicographer) · Wikipedia: Wolvercote Cemetery
Last verified: Sat May 02 2026 01:00:00 GMT+0100 (British Summer Time)