biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1704–59)
|
| biography:
| Scholar and murderer, born in Ramsgill, North Yorkshire, N England, UK. Though self-taught, he became a schoolmaster, amassed considerable materials for a comparative lexicon, and postulated the relationship between Celtic and Indo-European tongues. In 1745 he was tried for the murder of a wealthy shoemaker, but acquitted for want of evidence. In 1759, on fresh evidence coming to light about the murder charge, he was tried at York, and hanged. His story was the subject of a romance by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton and a ballad by Thomas Hood. |
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