HUDSON-WILLIAMS, THOMAS (1873 - 1961), scholar and translator

Name: Thomas Hudson-williams
Date of birth: 1873
Date of death: 1961
Spouse: Gwladys Hudson-Williams (née Williams)
Parent: R. Williams
Gender: Male
Occupation: scholar and translator
Area of activity: Literature and Writing; Scholarship and Languages
Author: Thomas Parry

Born 4 February 1873, son of R. Williams, Caernarfon. He was educated at Friars School, Bangor, University College of North Wales, Bangor, and the University of Greifswald. In 1894 he took the degree of the University of London in Classics, French and Celtic, and the D. Lit., of the same university in 1911. He was appointed Assistant Lecturer in French and German at University College, Bangor, in 1896, and transferred to Classics in 1900. In 1904 he was promoted to the Chair of Greek, which he occupied until his retirement in 1940.

In Celtic studies he published ' Cairdius Aenias ocus Didaine (The love of Aeneas and Dido) ', a Ballymote MS text which he edited with a translation and notes in Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie, 1898. His main contributions to Greek scholarship were The Elegies of Theognis (1910) and Early Greek Elegy (1926). In the Welsh language he published Groeg y Testament Newydd (1927) and Y Groegiaid Gynt (1932). He published two works of comparative linguistics, A Short Introduction to the study of Comparative Grammar (1935) and A Short Grammar of Old Persian (1936). Having learnt the Russian language in retirement, he translated some Russian classics into Welsh, Storiau o'r Rwseg (1942), Carcharor y Cawcasws, Tolstoy (1943), Cerddi o'r Rwseg (1945), Merch y Capten, Pushkin (1947). Two other translations were published posthumously: Pedair drama fer o'r Rwseg (1964) and Y Tadau a'r Plant, Turgeniev, (1964). He published an amazing number of translations and articles about foreign literatures in all the main Welsh journals and newspapers. There is a bibliography in the Journal of the Welsh Bibliographical Society, ix, 211-218. He published his reminiscences in Atgofion am Gaernarfon (1950).

He married in 1905 Gwladys, daughter of W. Prichard Williams, and they had a daughter and two sons. He died 12 April 1961.

Author

Published date: 2001

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