All Scholars

FURNEAUX, Henry

  • Henry Furneaux
  • Date of Birth: June 26, 1829
  • Born City: St. Germans, Cornwall
  • Born State/Country: England
  • Parents: The Reverend Tobias & Anne Richards F.
  • Date of Death: January 7, 1900
  • Death City: Oxford
  • Death State/Country: England
  • Married: Elizabeth Eleanor Severn, May 22, 1870
  • Education:

    Winchester College; B.A., Corpus Christi, Oxford (First Class) 1851.
  • Professional Experience:

    Fellow, Corpus Christi, 1854; tutor; ordained & moderator 1856; proctor, 1865; examiner in lit. hum., 1871-6; Rector, Lower Heyford, 1868-93.
  • Publications:

    Cornelii Taciti Annalium Ab Excessu Divi Augusti Libri = The Annals of Tacitus, ed. with introduction & notes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1884; rev. ed., with C.D. Fisher & Henry Francis Pelham, 1896, 1906, 1968; Vol. II ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1891; 2nd ed. rev. by H.F. Pelham & C.D. Fisher (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907, 1961); Cornelii Taciti Annalium libri I-IV (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1885, 1889; 1897; 1962); Cornelii Taciti De Germania (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1894); Cornelii Taciti Vita Agricolae (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1898; rev. ed. by F. Haverfield & J.G.C. Anderson, 1922, 1929, 1939); Cornelii Taciti opera minora (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1899, 1939); Subject Matter of Tacitus Annals I-III, including full index to persons and places with E. Hartley-Parker, (Oxford: James Thornton, 1899); Cornelii Taciti Annalium libri V, VI, XI, XII with notes abridged from Furneaux’s edition by H. Pitman (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912); Cornelii Taciti Annalium libri XIII-XVI (with notes abridged from Furneaux’s edition by H. Pitman Oxford Clarendon Press, 1904, 1958, 2016).
  • Notes:

    Henry Furneaux was, in the late 19th and 20th century, the premier expert on Tacitus. He came from an established Devonshire family but was born in Cornwall, where his father was vicar for 50 years. He married the daughter of Joseph Severn (1793-1879), the artist and British consul in Italy who was a friend of John Keats. Furneaux’s gift for learning was evident in his school days at Winchester and his first-class degree from Oxford resulted in an invitation to remain at Corpus which he served in numerous positions. His lifelong study of Tacitus began to show fruit when Furneaux was in his mid-fifties as his magisterial editions or Tacitus oeuvre began to appear. Over the next 15 years he published editions that remained standard (and regularly reprinted) for over a century. Revisions by J.B.C. Anderson, E. Hartley-Parker, and others tended to update newly discovered historical and textual issues. 

    Learned and courtly, he was generous and kind to students and colleagues. Though he seemed unapproachable, he was never aloof from those who needed his counsel and he was legendary for his ability as a raconteur of hilarious anecdotes. Feeling the pressure of age, he retired from teaching and his religious duties in 1893 in order to devote the rest of his life to the revision of his published work and the production of new editions.
  • Sources:

    The Times (8 Jan. 1900) 4; “The Rev. Henry Furneaux” The Pelican Record (Corpus Christi College) 5 (1900) 80-93; “Corpus in the Early Sixties,” The Pelican Record 7 (1905) 179-80; Herbert Benario, DBC, 345.
  • Author: Ward Briggs