William Whittingham Lyman Jr. (January 3, 1885 – November 8, 1983), also known as Jack Lyman, was an American writer and academic, primarily in the field of Celtic studies.

Life and work

Lyman was born at

Napa County Napa County () is a county north of San Pablo Bay located in the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 138,019. The county seat is the City of Napa. Napa County was one of the original co ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, the son of William Whittingham Lyman and Mrs Sarah A. Nowland, and the grandson of Theodore Benedict Lyman. His father built the Lyman winery, now known as the El Molino winery. In 1905, while an undergraduate at

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, he was convinced by

Charles Mills Gayley Charles Mills Gayley (February 22, 1858 – July 25, 1932) was a professor of English, the Classics, and Academic Dean of the University of California at Berkeley between the fall of 1889 and July 1932. Biography Gayley was born in Shanghai to ...

to achieve an

academic major An academic major is the academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits. A student who successfully completes all courses required for the major qualifies for an undergraduate degree. The word ''major'' (also called ''conce ...

English literature English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...

. Upon completion of his

Master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

, Gayley arranged for him to receive a university

fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

ship to travel to the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

to study

Celtic languages The Celtic languages ( usually , but sometimes ) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward ...

with Sir

John Rhys John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second E ...

. After a year at Oxford, Lyman spent two years at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

studying the

Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...

. He returned to the

to take up a post as Instructor in Celtic (then a

tenure Tenure is a category of academic appointment existing in some countries. A tenured post is an indefinite academic appointment that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances, such as financial exigency or program disco ...

-track position) within the English department in 1911-1912. In the same year, Celtic appears on the list of approved majors in the College of Letters and Science and in the following year Lyman is named also as "Graduate Adviser" in Celtic. There he remained until 1922, whereupon he moved to Southern California and taught English at Los Angeles City College until his retirement. After retirement he and his family moved back to the family home near the

Bale Grist Mill Bale Grist Mill State Historic Park is a California state park located in Napa County between St. Helena and Calistoga. The park is the site of a water-powered grist mill that was built in 1846 is one of only two water-driven mills remaining west ...

north of

St. Helena Saint Helena () is a British overseas territory located in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is a remote volcanic tropical island west of the coast of south-western Africa, and east of Rio de Janeiro in South America. It is one of three constitu ...

. Commenting on his long life,

Ruth Witt-Diamant Ruth Witt-Diamant was a professor at San Francisco State University from 1931. She founded and was the first director of the SFSU Poetry Center in 1954. In her later years, after she retired at age 65, she traveled and taught English poetry at Tok ...

declared him to be the "oldest living poet". He was a poet of some renown, as mentioned by

Josephine Miles Josephine Louise Miles (June 11, 1911 – May 12, 1985) was an American poet and literary critic; the first woman tenured in the English department at the University of California, Berkeley. She wrote over a dozen books of poetry and several wor ...

: "In a legendary time in the Greek Theater in Berkeley at the end of the first world war, poets gathered around the visitor Witter Bynner with a great sense of inventiveness and praise. Names I have heard from that time were Genevieve Taggard, Hidegarde Flanner, Eda Lou Walton, David Greenhood, Jack Lyman." On January 1, 1921, he married the poet

Helen Hoyt Helen Lyman commonly known as Helen Hoyt or Helen Hoyt Lyman (January 22, 1887 – August 2, 1972) was an American poet. Biography She was born as Helen Hoyt in Norwalk, Connecticut on January 22, 1887, to Gould and Georgiana (Baird) Hoyt. ...

.''Poetry: A Magazine of Verse,'' 18:4 (July 1921), p. 209.
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Publications

As editor

* (With Dudley Chadwick Gordon and Vernon Rupert King). ''Today's Literature: An Omnibus of Short Stories, Novelettes, Poems, Plays, Profiles, and Essays.'' New York: American Book Company. 1935.

As author

* * * *

Unpublished memoirs

His typescript memoirs are held at the University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library and contain comments on many of his faculty colleagues as well as the circumstances of his departure from the university.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lyman, William Whittingham Jr. 1885 births 1983 deaths 20th-century American poets University of California, Berkeley alumni Harvard University alumni People from Napa County, California