William Bedwell: eminent oriental scholar

William Bedwell, born in 1563 in the Essex village of Great Hallingbury, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1607, after serving as the Rector of St Ethelburga's Bishopsgate, he became the Vicar of All Hallows, Tottenham (known at the time as 'Tottenham High Cross'). He wrote and published the first history of Tottenham printed in 1631 - ‘Brief History of Tottenham, with the Antient Poem of The Turnament of Tottenham’.
 
William became one of the foremost Arabists/Orientalists in Europe and gained the title "Father of Arabic studies in England". He continued his scholarly work and entertained those with interests in Arabic studies. Among those he mentored, influenced, and collaborated with, were: Isaac Casaubon, a Huguenot scholar from Paris, Erpenius who became a prominent Arabist in Europe, and Edward Pocoche, the future professor of Arabic at Oxford. He was also one of the 12 major translators of the King James Bible.
 
He died on 5 May 1632 at his vicarage leaving unfinished manuscripts of an Arabic Lexicon, and also of a Persian Dictionary. He donated all of his books and papers to Cambridge University. In his epitaph, William Bedwell was spoken as being "for the Eastern tongues, as learned a man as most lived in these modern times."
 
Despite his academic renown he was a humble man who was content with his primary role as family man and priest of Tottenham's parish church of All Hallows. He was buried in All Hallows, but sadly his tomb, along with others, was lost during the Victorian restoration and expansion of the church at All Hallows in 1875-7 by William Butterfield.

Bedwell’s arms in his Qur’an

Knowledge fights for space in Bedwell’s dictionary

For further information:
Samantha Brown ‘Thousands of little loose papers without any order at all’
William Bedwell, King James Bible

Header image: Letter from William Bedwell to his friend, fellow Arabist and then
Keeper of the Library at Cambridge University, Abraham Wheelock, concerning a different Arabic manuscript