Inspiration Friday – Joseph Wright: From Mill Hand to University Professor

I first came across Joseph Wright’s story while reading Humphrey Carpenter’s biography on JRR Tolkien.

“Joe Wright was a Yorkshireman, a truly self-made man who had worked his way up from the humblest origins to become Professor of Comparative Philology. He had been employed in a woollen-mill from the age of six, and at first this gave him no chance to learn to read and write. But by the time he was fifteen he was jealous of his workmates who could understand the newspapers, so he taught himself his letters. This did not take very long and only increased his desire to learn, so he went to night-school and studied French and German, He also taught himself Latin and mathematics, sitting over his books until two in the morning and rising again at five to set out for work.” (Carpenter 1977:55)

Wright used his savings to finance a term’s study at a university in Germany, walking most of the way to Heidelberg. Here he eventually took a doctorate before returning to England and joining Oxford University. Here he became a professor and wrote various books, among which was a Gothic primer, which “proved a revelation to Tolkien” (Carpenter 1977:55).

I have not been able to read the biography Wright’s wife wrote about him, but just this little piece of a life, written about in someone else’s biography, has been an inspiration to me and probably many others as well.

When I first read about this man who worked as hard as he could, regardless of his circumstances, I must have been in grade 11. My own love for languages had been kindled not that long before and I had seriously started to consider studying languages. I first came into contact with Gothic (other than the few words quoted in the Tolkien biography) in one of my first-year Afrikaans classes (about the language’s history, to be exact), where the Lord’s Prayer was quoted in our textbook. Little did I know then that only a few years later I would be using Wright’s own textbook in some of my studies!

Here is a sound clip and the text of the Lord's Prayer being recited in Gothic. 

Here are some links to Wright’s works available online and more information about him:

Joseph Wright’s Wikipedia page

Oxford Mail article: From woollen mills todreaming spires

Project Gutenberg; works by Joseph Wright