THE SALAMANCA CORPUS:

DIGITAL ARCHIVE OF ENGLISH DIALECT TEXTS

WESTMORELAND

DING 2021: "Born in Cheltenham, Glo., where his father (a native of Huddersfield, Yks.) was a Unitarian Minister. The 1881, 1901 and 1911 census records show him living in Much Woolton, Lan., with his parents (his mother had been born in Stafford). In the 1891 census he is recorded as living in Hale, at the time Cheshire but now part of Greater Manchester, also with his parents. In the 1911 census his occupation is listed as University Lecturer. He graduated B.A. (2nd class English Language and Literature) at the University of Manchester in 1903. He was then University Fellow in English Language in 1906. That year he submitted his M.A. thesis at the University of Liverpool. He earned his Ph D from the University of Bonn in 1907. He could be the Tom O. Hirst whose death is recorded in 1951 at St. Marylebone, London.  His father, Joseph Crowther Hirst , died at Gateacre, Liverpool, in 1919. Apparently he had re-married. In his will, signed in 1917, his second wife and his son appear as heirs. Tom Oakes Hirst inherited about two thousand pounds in shares of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company, of the Wigan Coal and Iron Company, of the Shirebrooke Colliery Company, and of the United Alkali Company; family portraits and pieces of furniture.

As stated in the Preface, his Grammar of the Dialect of Kendal was originally "a dissertation for the Honours School of English language and literature of the Victoria University." (i.e. the University of Manchester)." He signed it at Gateacre, Liverpool, which is very close to Much Woolton.

In 1907 he signed the publication of his Bonn Ph D thesis as "T.O.Hirst, M.A., aus Liverpool". In the Introduction he mentioned his "failing health." He also co-authored with Henry Cecil Wyld The Place Names of Lancashire, their Origin and History (1911) where he is described as "formerly Research Fellow in the University of Liverpool." Prof. Wyld indicates in the Preface (ix) that Dr. Hirst was Research fellow at the University of Liverpool between 1906 and 1908 and continued to work on this volume for two more years. However, Prof. Wyld states that he himself is responsible for the actual writing of the book."

WORKS

1906. A Grammar of the Dialect of Kendal (Westmoreland,) Descriptive and Historical With Specimens and a Glossary. Heidelberg: Carl Winter's Universitätsbuchhandlung. SC. EDD.

NOT IN KINGKONG PROJECT

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT HIS LIFE AND WORKS SEE

Fiddes, Edward. ed. 1908. The Victoria University of Manchester: Register of Graduates up to July 1st 1908. Manchester: University Press: 173.

Joseph Crowther Hirst, Probate 3oth April 1919, CGPLA Eng. & Wales.

Copyright © 2021- DING, María F.García-Bermejo Giner, The Salamanca Corpus, Universidad de Salamanca

Tom Oakes Hirst

(1879-?)