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John Sampson (linguist)

March 11, 2023

John Sampson (1862–1931) was an Irish linguist, literary scholar and librarian. As a scholar he is best known for The Dialect of the Gypsies of Wales (1926), an authoritative grammar of the Welsh Romani language.[1][2]

John Sampson

Early life

He was born in Schull, County Cork, Ireland, the son of James Sampson (1813-c. 1871), a chemist and engineer, and his wife Sarah Anne Macdermott; he was brother to Ralph Allen Sampson(1866-1939). James Sampson left Ireland after losing all his money in a bank failure. The family with four sons moved to Liverpool in 1871. John Sampson, the eldest, left school at the age of 14, after his father's death, and was apprenticed to the engraver and lithographer Alexander MacGregor. MacGregor retired when Sampson was aged 22, and from 1888 he ran his own printing business, in Liverpool's Corn Exchange.[3][4]

Sampson became librarian at University College, Liverpool in 1892, largely self-taught. His printing business had failed that year, and his application was supported by Kuno Meyer.[3][5]

In 1894, on a camping trip with others from the College, he encountered the musician Edward Wood, near Bala. The Wood family to which he belonged, descendants of Abram Wood (died 1799), were noted as speakers of Welsh-Romani, a quite pure inflected Romani dialect, which was to become Sampson's major study, and which earned him the sobriquet Romano rai ("Romany Lord", Gypsy scholar), or just "the Rai". They were also musicians, twenty-six harpists being noted from the 18th century.[6][7] In 1896, through Lloyd Roberts, a harpist and Edward Wood's brother-in-law, Sampson found Matthew Wood, on Cader Idris, who moved shortly to Abergynolwyn. He was brother to Edward, and with his four sons more fluent in Welsh Romani, in which they told folk tales. Sampson spent vacations with them, and began a thirty-year lexicographical and philological project on the language. Matthew Wood, however, abruptly disappeared some three years later.[8]

In 1901 Sampson met the artist Augustus John, who was teaching in an art school connected with University College. They struck up a long friendship, leading to an emphasis in John's works on Romani subjects.[9][10] At this period Sampson also knew the Polish painter Albert Lipczyński, who was in Liverpool with an introduction to John; Sampson found him an interpreter, "Doonie", who became his wife.[11]

Researcher with assistants

In the work of compiling The Dialect of the Gypsies of Wales, Sampson had assistants, notably Dora Esther Yates, who resisted his advances but found him intriguing.[12] Other followers were Gladys Imlach, Eileen Lyster and Agnes Marston.[13] Yates was in revolt against a strict family background, and recalled as comic the occasion when she and Marston were sent in 1906 to research the language of some German Roma in Blackpool. They returned late to family homes, both to find they had been locked out.[14]

Yates and Marston were sent in 1907 to find the burial place of Abram Wood, which they did, at Llangelynnin; Lyster later confirmed it, with a 1799 register entry. Yates and Marston were also successful in tracking down Matthew Wood, Sampson's important Welsh Romani source who had then been out of contact for nine years, at Betws Gwerfil Goch in 1908.[15]

Later life, death and funeral

Sampson separated from his wife Margaret in 1920.[3] In the intermittent history of the Gypsy Lore Society, Dora Yates supported its revival in 1922 (the Society had ceased to function during World War I, after Robert Andrew Scott Macfie had set it up again around 1906 and Sampson's presidency of 1915), and became its secretary in 1932.[12][16]

Sampson retired as librarian in 1928, and died at West Kirby, Cheshire on 9 November 1931. His funeral was non-religious with Romani elements, and his ashes were scattered on Foel-goch.[3]

Macfie and Yates were Sampson's executors, with Yates becoming the keeper of his literary estate.[17] It was Yates who organised Sampson's funeral that took place on 21 November 1931 at Llangwm, west of Corwen and north of Bala. At Margaret Sampson's request, women (other than Yates) were excluded. Augustus John was there, Michael Sampson for the immediate family, and Roma including Ithal Lee and musicians. The event had extensive national newspaper coverage.[18]

Scholar

While still a printer, Sampson investigated Shelta, a language used in the United Kingdom and United States with Irish origins. His work in this area was eventually published in 1937, by R. A. Stewart Macalister.[3] An early work on the Roma was "English Gypsy Songs and Rhymes", containing eighteen Anglo-Romani pieces. It was published in 1891, in the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society.[19][20]

Sampson edited a collection of the poetry of William Blake, Blake's "Poetical Works" (1905),[21] that restored the text from original works and annotated the published variants; Alfred Kazin described this as "the first accurate and completely trustworthy edition".[22] The 1913 edition published for the first time Blake's poem The French Revolution.[23] As a reviser, Sampson was involved in Geoffrey Keynes's 1921 Blake bibliography. They met for the first time in Liverpool, in 1910.[24][25]

The University of Oxford awarded Sampson an honorary degree in 1909. It was a D.Litt., and recognised both his linguistic studies and his work as a literary scholar.[3]

The Dialect of the Gypsies of Wales (1926) was Sampson's major work. It was started with the collaboration of Edward Wood, who died in 1902.[26]

Family

Sampson married in 1894 (Jessie) Margaret Sprunt (1871–1947).[3] The match was against the wishes of her father David Sprunt, and took place in secret at the Church of St Luke, Liverpool.[27] They had two sons, Michael, and Amyas, who was killed fighting in World War I, and a daughter Honor. Sampson also had a daughter with his research assistant Gladys Imlach (d. 1931). From about 1909 he led a double life, with Margaret, Amyas, and Honor living in a cottage rented at Betws Gwerfil Goch in north Wales, and with Gladys, a relationship that was covert in his lifetime.[3][28]

Michael Sampson was the father of the writer Anthony Sampson, who published a biography of John Sampson, The Scholar Gypsy: The Quest For A Family Secret (1997).[29][30]

References

  1. ^ . 17 May 2008. Archived from the original on 17 May 2008.
  2. ^ . 15 June 2006. Archived from the original on 15 June 2006.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Fraser, Angus. "Sampson, John". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35925. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. ^ Sampson, Anthony (19 November 2012). The Scholar Gypsy: The Quest for a Family Secret. A&C Black. pp. 13–4. ISBN 9781448210602. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
  5. ^ . 15 June 2006. Archived from the original on 15 June 2006.
  6. ^ Sampson, Anthony (19 November 2012). The Scholar Gypsy: The Quest for a Family Secret. A&C Black. pp. 54–5. ISBN 9781448210602. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
  7. ^ Jarman, Eldra. "Wood, Abram". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/62919. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  8. ^ Sampson, Anthony (19 November 2012). The Scholar Gypsy: The Quest for a Family Secret. A&C Black. pp. 56–8. ISBN 9781448210602. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
  9. ^ Holroyd, Michael. "John, Augustus Edwin". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/34196. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  10. ^ Michael Holroyd, Augustus John (1996 single-volume edition), p. 100.
  11. ^ Sampson, Anthony (19 November 2012). The Scholar Gypsy: The Quest for a Family Secret. A&C Black. p. 66. ISBN 9781448210602. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
  12. ^ a b Kamm, Antony. "Yates, Dora Esther". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/65659. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  13. ^ Sampson, Anthony (1997). The Scholar Gypsy: The Quest for a Family Secret. John Murray. p. 81. ISBN 0719557089.
  14. ^ Nord, Deborah Epstein (28 November 2008). Gypsies and the British Imagination, 1807–1930. Columbia University Press. p. 148. ISBN 9780231510332. Retrieved 9 July 2018.
  15. ^ Sampson, Anthony (1997). The Scholar Gypsy: The Quest for a Family Secret. John Murray. pp. 87–8. ISBN 0719557089.
  16. ^ Sampson, Anthony (1997). The Scholar Gypsy: The Quest for a Family Secret. John Murray. pp. 77 and 122. ISBN 0719557089.
  17. ^ Sampson, Anthony (1997). The Scholar Gypsy: The Quest for a Family Secret. John Murray. pp. 110 and 164. ISBN 0719557089.
  18. ^ Sampson, Anthony (1997). The Scholar Gypsy: The Quest for a Family Secret. John Murray. pp. 2–4 and 164. ISBN 0719557089.
  19. ^ Maccoll, Ewan; Seeger, Peggy (22 December 2015). Travellers' Songs from England and Scotland. Routledge. p. 3. ISBN 9781317292272. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
  20. ^ Michael Yates and Steve Roud, Alice E. Gillington: Dweller on the Roughs, Folk Music Journal Vol. 9, No. 1 (2006), pp. 72–94, at p. 73. Published by: English Folk Dance + Song Society JSTOR 4522777
  21. ^ Sampson, J. The Poetical Works of William Blake; a new and verbatim text from the manuscript engraved and letterpress originals (1905), OUP.
  22. ^ Kazin, A. The Portable Blake, 1945, "Blake Chronology".
  23. ^ Cobban, Alfred (1973). The Debate on the French Revolution, 1789-1800. A. and C. Black. p. 46. ISBN 9780713601787. Retrieved 9 July 2018.
  24. ^ Lock, Stephen. "Keynes, Sir Geoffrey Langdon". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/31310. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  25. ^ Sampson, Anthony (1997). The Scholar Gypsy: The Quest for a Family Secret. John Murray. pp. 72–3. ISBN 0719557089.
  26. ^ "Welsh Gypsy, Welsh Gypsies, Kale, Teulu Abram Wood, Abraham Wood". Valleystream.co.uk. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
  27. ^ Sampson, Anthony (1997). The Scholar Gypsy: The Quest for a Family Secret. John Murray. p. 51. ISBN 0719557089.
  28. ^ Sampson, Anthony (1997). The Scholar Gypsy: The Quest for a Family Secret. John Murray. p. 53. ISBN 0719557089.
  29. ^ Denniston, Robin. "Sampson, Anthony Terrell Seward". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/94621. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  30. ^ John Thompson, "Anthony Sampson" (obituary), The Guardian, 21 December 2004.

External links

 
Wikisource has original works by or about:
John Sampson

March 11, 2023
john, sampson, linguist, john, sampson, 1862, 1931, irish, linguist, literary, scholar, librarian, scholar, best, known, dialect, gypsies, wales, 1926, authoritative, grammar, welsh, romani, language, john, sampson, contents, early, life, researcher, with, ass. John Sampson 1862 1931 was an Irish linguist literary scholar and librarian As a scholar he is best known for The Dialect of the Gypsies of Wales 1926 an authoritative grammar of the Welsh Romani language 1 2 John Sampson Contents 1 Early life 2 Researcher with assistants 3 Later life death and funeral 4 Scholar 5 Family 6 References 7 External linksEarly life EditHe was born in Schull County Cork Ireland the son of James Sampson 1813 c 1871 a chemist and engineer and his wife Sarah Anne Macdermott he was brother to Ralph Allen Sampson 1866 1939 James Sampson left Ireland after losing all his money in a bank failure The family with four sons moved to Liverpool in 1871 John Sampson the eldest left school at the age of 14 after his father s death and was apprenticed to the engraver and lithographer Alexander MacGregor MacGregor retired when Sampson was aged 22 and from 1888 he ran his own printing business in Liverpool s Corn Exchange 3 4 Sampson became librarian at University College Liverpool in 1892 largely self taught His printing business had failed that year and his application was supported by Kuno Meyer 3 5 In 1894 on a camping trip with others from the College he encountered the musician Edward Wood near Bala The Wood family to which he belonged descendants of Abram Wood died 1799 were noted as speakers of Welsh Romani a quite pure inflected Romani dialect which was to become Sampson s major study and which earned him the sobriquet Romano rai Romany Lord Gypsy scholar or just the Rai They were also musicians twenty six harpists being noted from the 18th century 6 7 In 1896 through Lloyd Roberts a harpist and Edward Wood s brother in law Sampson found Matthew Wood on Cader Idris who moved shortly to Abergynolwyn He was brother to Edward and with his four sons more fluent in Welsh Romani in which they told folk tales Sampson spent vacations with them and began a thirty year lexicographical and philological project on the language Matthew Wood however abruptly disappeared some three years later 8 In 1901 Sampson met the artist Augustus John who was teaching in an art school connected with University College They struck up a long friendship leading to an emphasis in John s works on Romani subjects 9 10 At this period Sampson also knew the Polish painter Albert Lipczynski who was in Liverpool with an introduction to John Sampson found him an interpreter Doonie who became his wife 11 Researcher with assistants EditIn the work of compiling The Dialect of the Gypsies of Wales Sampson had assistants notably Dora Esther Yates who resisted his advances but found him intriguing 12 Other followers were Gladys Imlach Eileen Lyster and Agnes Marston 13 Yates was in revolt against a strict family background and recalled as comic the occasion when she and Marston were sent in 1906 to research the language of some German Roma in Blackpool They returned late to family homes both to find they had been locked out 14 Yates and Marston were sent in 1907 to find the burial place of Abram Wood which they did at Llangelynnin Lyster later confirmed it with a 1799 register entry Yates and Marston were also successful in tracking down Matthew Wood Sampson s important Welsh Romani source who had then been out of contact for nine years at Betws Gwerfil Goch in 1908 15 Later life death and funeral EditSampson separated from his wife Margaret in 1920 3 In the intermittent history of the Gypsy Lore Society Dora Yates supported its revival in 1922 the Society had ceased to function during World War I after Robert Andrew Scott Macfie had set it up again around 1906 and Sampson s presidency of 1915 and became its secretary in 1932 12 16 Sampson retired as librarian in 1928 and died at West Kirby Cheshire on 9 November 1931 His funeral was non religious with Romani elements and his ashes were scattered on Foel goch 3 Macfie and Yates were Sampson s executors with Yates becoming the keeper of his literary estate 17 It was Yates who organised Sampson s funeral that took place on 21 November 1931 at Llangwm west of Corwen and north of Bala At Margaret Sampson s request women other than Yates were excluded Augustus John was there Michael Sampson for the immediate family and Roma including Ithal Lee and musicians The event had extensive national newspaper coverage 18 Scholar EditWhile still a printer Sampson investigated Shelta a language used in the United Kingdom and United States with Irish origins His work in this area was eventually published in 1937 by R A Stewart Macalister 3 An early work on the Roma was English Gypsy Songs and Rhymes containing eighteen Anglo Romani pieces It was published in 1891 in the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society 19 20 Sampson edited a collection of the poetry of William Blake Blake s Poetical Works 1905 21 that restored the text from original works and annotated the published variants Alfred Kazin described this as the first accurate and completely trustworthy edition 22 The 1913 edition published for the first time Blake s poem The French Revolution 23 As a reviser Sampson was involved in Geoffrey Keynes s 1921 Blake bibliography They met for the first time in Liverpool in 1910 24 25 The University of Oxford awarded Sampson an honorary degree in 1909 It was a D Litt and recognised both his linguistic studies and his work as a literary scholar 3 The Dialect of the Gypsies of Wales 1926 was Sampson s major work It was started with the collaboration of Edward Wood who died in 1902 26 Family EditSampson married in 1894 Jessie Margaret Sprunt 1871 1947 3 The match was against the wishes of her father David Sprunt and took place in secret at the Church of St Luke Liverpool 27 They had two sons Michael and Amyas who was killed fighting in World War I and a daughter Honor Sampson also had a daughter with his research assistant Gladys Imlach d 1931 From about 1909 he led a double life with Margaret Amyas and Honor living in a cottage rented at Betws Gwerfil Goch in north Wales and with Gladys a relationship that was covert in his lifetime 3 28 Michael Sampson was the father of the writer Anthony Sampson who published a biography of John Sampson The Scholar Gypsy The Quest For A Family Secret 1997 29 30 References Edit History of Romani Linguistics A brief history of Romani linguistics ROMANI Project Manchester 17 May 2008 Archived from the original on 17 May 2008 University of Liverpool 15 June 2006 Archived from the original on 15 June 2006 a b c d e f g h Fraser Angus Sampson John Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 35925 Subscription or UK public library membership required Sampson Anthony 19 November 2012 The Scholar Gypsy The Quest for a Family Secret A amp C Black pp 13 4 ISBN 9781448210602 Retrieved 8 July 2018 University of Liverpool 15 June 2006 Archived from the original on 15 June 2006 Sampson Anthony 19 November 2012 The Scholar Gypsy The Quest for a Family Secret A amp C Black pp 54 5 ISBN 9781448210602 Retrieved 8 July 2018 Jarman Eldra Wood Abram Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 62919 Subscription or UK public library membership required Sampson Anthony 19 November 2012 The Scholar Gypsy The Quest for a Family Secret A amp C Black pp 56 8 ISBN 9781448210602 Retrieved 8 July 2018 Holroyd Michael John Augustus Edwin Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 34196 Subscription or UK public library membership required Michael Holroyd Augustus John 1996 single volume edition p 100 Sampson Anthony 19 November 2012 The Scholar Gypsy The Quest for a Family Secret A amp C Black p 66 ISBN 9781448210602 Retrieved 8 July 2018 a b Kamm Antony Yates Dora Esther Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 65659 Subscription or UK public library membership required Sampson Anthony 1997 The Scholar Gypsy The Quest for a Family Secret John Murray p 81 ISBN 0719557089 Nord Deborah Epstein 28 November 2008 Gypsies and the British Imagination 1807 1930 Columbia University Press p 148 ISBN 9780231510332 Retrieved 9 July 2018 Sampson Anthony 1997 The Scholar Gypsy The Quest for a Family Secret John Murray pp 87 8 ISBN 0719557089 Sampson Anthony 1997 The Scholar Gypsy The Quest for a Family Secret John Murray pp 77 and 122 ISBN 0719557089 Sampson Anthony 1997 The Scholar Gypsy The Quest for a Family Secret John Murray pp 110 and 164 ISBN 0719557089 Sampson Anthony 1997 The Scholar Gypsy The Quest for a Family Secret John Murray pp 2 4 and 164 ISBN 0719557089 Maccoll Ewan Seeger Peggy 22 December 2015 Travellers Songs from England and Scotland Routledge p 3 ISBN 9781317292272 Retrieved 8 July 2018 Michael Yates and Steve Roud Alice E Gillington Dweller on the Roughs Folk Music Journal Vol 9 No 1 2006 pp 72 94 at p 73 Published by English Folk Dance Song Society JSTOR 4522777 Sampson J The Poetical Works of William Blake a new and verbatim text from the manuscript engraved and letterpress originals 1905 OUP Kazin A The Portable Blake 1945 Blake Chronology Cobban Alfred 1973 The Debate on the French Revolution 1789 1800 A and C Black p 46 ISBN 9780713601787 Retrieved 9 July 2018 Lock Stephen Keynes Sir Geoffrey Langdon Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 31310 Subscription or UK public library membership required Sampson Anthony 1997 The Scholar Gypsy The Quest for a Family Secret John Murray pp 72 3 ISBN 0719557089 Welsh Gypsy Welsh Gypsies Kale Teulu Abram Wood Abraham Wood Valleystream co uk Retrieved 15 December 2016 Sampson Anthony 1997 The Scholar Gypsy The Quest for a Family Secret John Murray p 51 ISBN 0719557089 Sampson Anthony 1997 The Scholar Gypsy The Quest for a Family Secret John Murray p 53 ISBN 0719557089 Denniston Robin Sampson Anthony Terrell Seward Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 94621 Subscription or UK public library membership required John Thompson Anthony Sampson obituary The Guardian 21 December 2004 External links Edit Wikisource has original works by or about John Sampson Works by John Sampson at Project Gutenberg Works by or about John Sampson at Internet Archive Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title John Sampson linguist amp oldid 1137886886, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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