FREDERICK FURNIVALL, BORN 1825
AN EXTREMELY ENERGETIC VICTORIAN
Dr Frederick Furnivall was a Victorian exemplar of reforming zeal, intellectual curiosity, and physical exercise. He was in the vanguard of the women’s liberation movement, founding a women’s rowing club at Hammersmith at a time when rowing was a striclty male preserve. He was one of the instigators and editors of the Oxford English Dictionary. He founded the Ballad Society, the New Shakespeare Society, the Wyclif Society, the Browning Society, and the Shelley Society. In his spare time he became a leading expert on Chaucer. A vegetarian, he never smoked or drank, rowed to Richmond every Sunday, and lived to the age of 85. Furnivall Gardens, a park by the Thames in Hammersmith, is named after him.