Jessie Payne Margoliouth ( Smith; 23 February 1856 – 18 August 1933) was a British

Syriac Syriac may refer to: *Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages a ...

scholar and campaigner for women's suffrage.

Biography

Margoliouth was born Jessie Payne Smith on 23 February 1856 in

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...

, London, England. Her father was

Robert Payne Smith Robert Payne Smith (7 November 1818 – 31 March 1895) was Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford and Canon of Christ Church from 1865 until 1870, when he was appointed Dean of Canterbury by Queen Victoria on the advice of Wil ...

(1818–1895), a theologian and Anglican priest. She was brought up in Oxford and Canterbury. Her father taught her Syriac and

lexicography Lexicography is the study of lexicons, and is divided into two separate academic disciplines. It is the art of compiling dictionaries. * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries. * Theoretica ...

. She assisted her father with the ''Thesaurus Syriacus'' (a Syriac to Latin dictionary), and, following his death, she saw it through to completion in 1901. She also abridged and translated the ''Thesaurus Syriacus'' into English in 1903 as ''A compendious Syriac Dictionary'' (Syriac to English). She also published a ''Supplement to the Thesaurus Syriacus of R. Payne Smith'' in 1927, adding 345 pages of new entries. On 25 April 1896, she married

David Samuel Margoliouth David Samuel Margoliouth, FBA (; 17 October 1858, in London – 22 March 1940, in London) was an English orientalist. He was briefly active as a priest in the Church of England. He was Laudian Professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford ...

, Laudian Professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford. They had a happy marriage but did not have any children. Margoliouth was a devout Christian. She was active with the Archbishop of Canterbury's Mission to the Assyrian Christians from the 1880s. The mission's aims were to strengthen the faith and religious practice of Assyrian Christians, explicitly not to convert others to Christianity. In 1913, she jointly edited with the Reverend F. N. Heazell an account of the mission titled ''Kurds and Christians''. Margoliouth was a strong supporter of

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

. From 1904 to 1916, she was the first chair of the Oxford Women's Suffrage Society (a member of the

National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies The National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), also known as the ''suffragists'' (not to be confused with the suffragettes) was an organisation founded in 1897 of women's suffrage societies around the United Kingdom. In 1919 it was ren ...

): it was founded in 1904 and initially met in her drawing room. She was also the founding chair of the Oxford branch of the

Church League for Women's Suffrage The Church League for Women's Suffrage (CLWS) was an organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom. The league was started in London, but by 1913 it had branches across England, in Wales and Scotland and Ireland. Aims an ...

, serving from 1910 until 1913. Margoliouth died on 18 August 1933 in

Boars Hill Boars Hill is a hamlet southwest of Oxford, straddling the boundary between the civil parishes of Sunningwell and Wootton. Historically, part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire. History The earliest ...

, Oxfordshire. She was buried Hoop Lane Cemetery,

Golders Green Golders Green is an area in the London Borough of Barnet in England. A smaller suburban linear settlement, near a farm and public grazing area green of medieval origins, dates to the early 19th century. Its bulk forms a late 19th century and ea ...

, London.

References

External links

* J. Payne Smith, ed., ''A compendious Syriac Dictionary'', 190
Wikicommons
* D. G. K. Taylor
‘Margoliouth , Jessie Payne (1856–1933)’
''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 4 Feb 2008 1856 births 1933 deaths Syriacists British suffragists 20th-century lexicographers Women lexicographers {{UK-translator-stub