Tregelles, SAMUEL PRIDEAUX

Tregelles, SAMUEL PRIDEAUX, New Testament critic, was born at Falmouth, January 30, 1813. He was educated at Falmouth grammar-school, and spent some years as a private teacher, but from an early age gave himself to the study of the New Testament text, and at twenty-five formed the plan of a Greek New Testament on the principles which he afterwards carried out. In preparing for his magnum opus he visited the Continent three times in search of MSS., and spent five months in Rome, where he was allowed to see, but not to collate, the Codex Vaticanus. The first part appeared in 1857; the sixth, completing the text, in 1872. The seventh part, containing the prolegomena, appeared in 1879, edited by Dr Hort and A. W. Streane. Other works of this laborious scholar were the Codex Zacynthius (1861), and Canon Muratorianns (1868); an Account of the Printed Text of the Greek New Testament (1854), and Remarks on the Prophetic Visions of Daniel (1847). Besides these he edited The Englishman's Greek Concordance, and The Englishman's Hebrew Concordance, and translated Gesenius' Hebrew Lexicon (1847). Tregelles received a pension of £100 in 1862, which was doubled in 1870. In 1861 and again in 1870 he was stricken by paralysis, yet persevered in his labours with a noble fortitude. He was invited to join the New Testament Revision Committee in 1870, but was prevented from attending by ill-health. An earlier honour was the LL.D. degree from St Andrews (1850). Tregelles was of Quaker parentage, but in early life joined the Plymouth Brethren, from whom in later years he separated. He died on the 24th of April 1875.