In common with Johnson’s
Dictionary, the committee of the New English Dictionary (what would become the
Oxford English Dictionary), decided to include quotations illustrating the
various usages of each particular headword. The enormity of this undertaking required
legions of volunteer readers, who submitted their researches on slips of paper
to the editor of the Dictionary. Sir James Murray had built a ‘scriptorium’ in
which the slips of paper were placed into pigeonholes, waiting for their turn
to be used.
Sir James Murray in the Scriptorium |
In the September 1879 edition of the Athenaeum magazine, Murray
wrote that it would be useful to his researches if more American readers would
volunteer. His appeal brought in about 800 letters, including one from a Dr W C
Minor, of Crowthorne, Berkshire. In due course, Dr Minor received a letter from
Murray saying that, on the basis of his qualifications, interests and
enthusiasm, he would be welcome as a volunteer reader; Murray also included two
closely printed sheets of instructions on how the work was to be undertaken.
Dr W C Minor in his Study |
Minor set to work in his personal library, but unlike other volunteers, he
worked methodically through each individual volume, noting in alphabetical
order each interesting or unusual word he encountered into small, eight page
notebooks he had made from sheets of notepaper. For the next five years Minor
worked his way through his books, producing dozens of notebooks filled with
alphabetical lists of words in his tiny, meticulous handwriting. In 1884 he
wrote to Murray, asking which particular words were the dictionary staff were
working on at that time, and when Murray replied, Minor was able to consult his
notebooks and immediately come up with examples of each usage.
One of Dr Minor's slips sent to Sir James Murray |
In this way, he
was one step ahead of the lexicographers, and his work was to prove invaluable.
Dr W C Minor was mentioned in the list of valuable contributors listed at the
front of the volumes of the dictionary.
Acknowledgement of Minor's contribution in the Preface to the OED |
In the May 1896 edition of the
Athenaeum, Murray, in a report of the proceedings of the Philological Society,
specifically mentioned the 'great work done' by Dr W C Minor.
From the Athenaeum May 2nd 1896, mentioning Minor's contribution |
But all was not as
it seemed with Dr W C Minor.
William Chester Minor had been born in June 1834 on
the island of Ceylon, where his family were American Congregationalist
missionaries. In 1848, the young Minor was sent back to America to study; he
attended Yale University and eventually graduated with a degree and
specialization in comparative anatomy in 1863. The bookish, flute-playing,
water-colour-painting Dr Minor became an army doctor in the Union Army, in the
middle of the Civil War. In 1864, he was in Virginia, where old-style medicine
was struggling to treat new-style mechanised warfare. Men were being
slaughtered by musket, mortar and Minié ball, in the days before anaesthesia,
antibiotics and penicillin. Field hospitals were filled with gangrene,
amputations and filth, where men died in agony from their suppurating wounds.
The sensitive Dr Minor went into this hell in Virginia’s Orange County, in the
two-day mayhem of the Battle of the Wilderness, one of the bloodiest encounters
in a very bloody war.
The Battle of the Wilderness 1864 |
Unsurprisingly, Army discipline began to break down when
soldiers, faced with almost certain death on the battlefield, began to desert
(over 5,000 in May 1864 alone). Punishments were harsh and inventive; men were
flogged, fined or shot. They were gagged with bayonets, hanged by their thumbs,
and made to carry a yard of rail. And men were branded with the letter ‘D’ for
‘deserter’. On the face. Dr Minor was ordered, as army doctor, to brand a young
Irish deserter in such a manner. Much, much later, it was reported that this
act “… drove him mad.”
Title Page - Post Mortem Examinations by Dr W C Minor 1864 |
Soon afterwards he was transferred, but the astonishing
promise he had shown (“one of the best half dozen in the country”) disappeared;
he began to drink heavily and frequent brothels. He carried a revolver with him
everywhere, convinced that he was about to be attacked, particularly by
Irishmen bent on revenge. He contracted venereal infections, challenged an army
officer to a duel, and generally acted contrary to his former temperament.
Eventually, he was committed to an asylum and ‘Retired’ from the Army, with a
pension for life. In 1871, he left for a health-cure in Europe, and arrived in
London in November. His delusions never left him – he was convinced that
Irishmen were following him, that they broke into his lodgings when he slept,
and stole his belongings.
In the early morning of February 17th
1872, George Merrit, father of six and with a pregnant wife at home, was on his
way to work on the dawn shift at the Red Lion Brewery, when he was confronted by
Dr Minor, who began to shout at him. Merrit turned and ran, but Minor drew his
revolver and opened fire. Three or four shots rang out, one hit Merrit in the
neck, shattering his spine and killing him. Minor stood and waited for the
police to arrive, he admitted to the crime and was arrested. At his trial,
guided by the McNaughton Rules, the jury found Minor ‘not guilty by reason of
insanity’ and on April 6th 1872, the judge ordered him to be
detained in safe custody ‘… until Her Majesty’s Pleasure be known”; on April 17th
he was admitted, as Patient 742, to Broadmoor Hospital, Crowthorne, Berkshire.
As a well-born, well-educated Doctor and former Army officer, with a regular
pension, he was assigned two rooms in Block 2, one of which became his library.
He filled the room with books, and strangely, he contacted Eliza, Merrit’s
widow, who visited him regularly and brought him books on request from London,
and on whom he settled an income. It is highly likely that it was in one of
these books that he found one of Murray’s requests for volunteer readers.
Dr W C Minor in later life |
It is
entirely reasonable to assume that Murray saw the address of Broadmoor Hospital
and thought Dr Minor was employed there, as nothing indicated that he was
actually an inmate. Eventually the truth came out, and Murray made many visits
to Crowthorne, where he met Minor regularly, dined and talked at length with
him. The two men became firm friends, although Murray would telegraph the
Governor of Broadmoor before his visits, to ascertain the mood of Minor, and
would cancel his trip if the Doctor was in ill spirits. As for Minor, he seems
to have thrived from the contact and attention, and it was noted that his mood
had lifted noticeably.
But the paranoia continued, and delusions crowded in on
poor Dr Minor; on December 3rd 1902, he took the penknife he used
for cutting the unfinished pages of his first editions, and after tying a
tourniquet around the base of his penis, he cut the organ off and threw into
the fire. When asked why, he replied he had done it “… in the interests of
Morality”; he had previously claimed he was being taken from his cell and was
forced to fornicate with 150 women a night, “… from Reading to Land’s End.”
From then on, and with advancing age, his physical health declined and in 1910,
under his brother’s recognizance, he returned to America, where he entered St
Elizabeth’s Asylum, Washington D C, and continued to correspond with Murray, until
the latter’s death in 1915.
The tombstone of Dr W C Minor |
In 1919, Minor moved, at his nephew’s request, to
Hartford, Connecticut, where, blind, toothless and with failing memory, he died
from bronchiopneumonia, on March 26th 1920, aged eighty-five years
and nine months. It would be another eight years before the OED was finally completed.
The whole, fascinating story can be read in far greater detail
in Simon Winchester’s marvellous The Surgeon of Crowthorne, which I cannot
recommend highly enough.
I agree with you, a fascinating story and one told in typically able fashion by Mr Winchester. I only wish that the last part, wherein he states the memorials to Dr Minor and the man he killed, are both rather inadequate, could somehow be rectified.
ReplyDeleteHello, thank you for your kind comment.
ReplyDeleteAs to the memorial question, I must admit that I'm in two minds - I'm not a big fan of statues to the great and the good and so on but then again credit where it's due. Maybe, and this sounds trite and I'd don't mean it in that way, is that the true memorial to messers Minor and Merrit lies in the OED itself. It's that St Paul's Cathedral and Christopher Wren thing - 'if you seek a monument, look about yourself' (I'm paraphrasing). It's inadequate but I do hope that you can see my point. As a reader of dictionaries, I sometimes wonder just what it is that I'm reading comes from Dr Minor's submissions. Thank you again for your interest, if you can find the time please return and I hope you find something that interests you.
Cannot wait to see the movie! Very interesting!
ReplyDelete