The Gaisford Prize is a prize awarded by the Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford for a composition in Classical Greek Verse and Prose by an undergraduate student. The prize was founded in 1855 in memory of Dr Thomas Gaisford (1779–1855). The prizes now also include the Gaisford Essay Prize and the Gaisford Dissertation Prize.
History
Dr Thomas Gaisford, Dean of Christ Church, Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford for more than forty years (1811–1855), died on 2 June 1855. Ten days later, at a meeting held in Christ Church on 12 June, it was resolved to establish a prize in his honour, to be called the Gaisford Prize, and to raise for that purpose £1,000 by public subscription, the interest to be applied "to reward a successful prizeman or prizemen, under such regulations as shall be approved by Convocation".[1] The prizes were first awarded in 1857.[2]
There have been four categories of Gaisford Prize. The two original categories were:
Gaisford Prize for Greek Verse. It ceased being awarded for a period after 1975,[3] but had been revived by 1995.[4]
Gaisford Prize for Greek Prose. By the late 1980s it was awarded based on Honour Moderations exams.[3]
By 2003 the Schedule to the University's Statutes and Regulations[5] provided for a different two prizes, which remained in the Schedule as of 2024:[6]
Gaisford Essay Prize for Greek Language and Literature, available to undergraduates
Gaisford Dissertation Prize for Greek or Latin Language and Literature, available to graduates
The 1857–1876 winners of the Greek Prose Prize were listed alongside winners of the Newdigate Prize on the wrapper of Oscar Wilde's published Newdigate-winning poem Ravenna (1878).[7]
1865: Ernest James Myers[15] (Balliol and Wadham) for a Theocritean idyll: Ægon et Milo, qui ad Olympicum certamen profecti erant, domum redeuntes, inter se loquuntur.
1866: George Nutt (New College) for comic iambics: Henry IV, Part II, Act 1. Sc. 2.[16]
1871: George Edward Jeans (Pembroke and Hertford) for Iceland: in Herodotean prose[52]
1872: Alfred Joshua Butler (Trinity and Brasenose) for Ullane sint reconditioris doctrinæ vestigia apud Homerum reperienda?
1873: William Wardlaw Waddell (Balliol) for The Siege of Londonderry, in the style of Thucydides.
1874: [No Candidate], A Platonic dialogue, "Esse aliquid manes". De spectris et simulacris mortuorum quid revera sentiendum sit.
1875: Edward Maclaine Field (Trinity) for The Sources of the Nile. Prose in the Style of Herodotus (Viator Anglus Nili fontes explorans quæ viderit narrat.).
1876: George Spencer Bower (New College) for a Platonic dialogue, Socrates Aristophanes Sophocles de Arte Poetarum inter se colloquuntur.
1877: Arthur Elam Haigh for The Popish Plot, in the style of Thucydides.
1878: Philip Edward Raynor (New College) for a Platonic dialogue, Ἀναξίμανδρος ἢ περὶ ζῴων γενέσεως.
1893: Wilfred Ormrod Bailey (Trinity) for A supposed speech of Abraham Lincoln on the occasion of his second election to the presidency of the United States, in the style of Thucydides.
1894: Herbert Sidebotham for Ἀριστοφάνης ἢ περὶ τοῦ γελοίου.
1908: Leslie Whitaker Hunter (New College) for Warren Hastings' Defence of his Administration in India.
1909: George Douglas Brooks (Worcester) for The Relation between Art and Morality.
1911: George Leicester Marriott (Exeter) for A Dialogue Between Socrates, Agathon and Aristophanes, τοῦ αὐτοῦ ἀνδρὸς εἶναι κωμῳδίαν καὶ τραγῳδίαν ἐπίστασθαι ποιεῖν.
1912: Cecil John Ellingham for Πορφυρίων Δίης Τύραννος.
2024: Alexander Christensen (Blackfriars Hall) and Finn Jarvis (Trinity).
Notable winning entries
John Davidson Beazley's winning entry for the 1907 Greek Prose prize, Herodotus at the Zoo, was reprinted by Blackwell in 1911 and later appeared in a collection of classical parodies produced in Switzerland in 1968. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography calls it "an enchanting work".[69]
George Stuart Robertson won the prize for Greek Verse in 1894 with a translation of a hundred lines of Shakespeare into comic iambic verse, and the next year he won the prize for Greek Prose and a Blue for hammer throwing. He heard about the 1896 Summer Olympics, the first of the modern era, and later explained "Greek classics were my proper academic field, so I could hardly resist a go at the Olympics, could I?" On arrival in Athens, he found to his dismay that his discipline of hammer throwing was not to be competed in, so in the spirit of amateurism he entered the shot put, the discus and the tennis. In the discus, he recorded the Games' worst ever throw, and in the tennis doubles he lost his only match but nevertheless won a Bronze Medal. In a ceremony after the Games, Robertson recited an ode to athletic prowess which he had composed in Greek.[70]
Between 1953 and 1956, C. G. R. Leach won all four University prizes for composition in classical languages – the Gaisford Greek Verse and Prose prizes, and the Chancellor's Prizes for Latin Verse and Prose – while his brother J. H. C. Leach won three and was runner-up for a fourth.[3]
In fiction
In Max Beerbohm's satirical tragedy of undergraduate life at Oxford, Zuleika Dobson (1911), the hero, called the Duke of Dorset,[71] has won one of the Prizes:
At Eton he had been called "Peacock", and this nick-name had followed him up to Oxford. It was not wholly apposite, however. For, whereas the peacock is a fool even among birds, the Duke had already taken (besides a particularly brilliant First in Mods) the Stanhope, the Newdigate, the Lothian, and the Gaisford Prize for Greek Verse.[72]
^Stray, Christopher (2007). "Non-identical twins: classics at nineteenth-century Oxford and Cambridge". In Stray, Christopher (ed.). Oxford Classics: Teaching and Learning, 1800-2000. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN978-1-4725-3782-9.
^ abcdefgHibbert, Christopher; Hibbert, Edward, eds. (1988). "Prizes and scholarships". The Encyclopaedia of Oxford. London: Macmillan. pp. 338–340. ISBN0-333-39917-X.
^Pearson, Charles J., Gaisford Prize: A translation of Milton's Paradise lost, Book 6, 824–877, Homeric hexameters : recited in the Theatre, Oxford, June 17, MDCCCLXIII] (Oxford: T. and G. Shrimpton, 1863)
^Matthew, H. C. G., 'Godley, (John) Arthur, first Baron Kilbracken (1847–1932), civil servant' in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 (online edition, subscription required), accessed 16 August 2008
^Nicholson, Edward Byron, Gaisford Prize: Greek verse recited in the Sheldonian theatre, Oxford, June 14, MDCCCLXXI (Oxford: G. Shrimpton, 1870, 7 pp.)
^Haigh, Arthur Elam, Gaisford Prize: Greek Verse (Oxford: Thos. Shrimpton & Son, 1876), online at books.google.co.uk, accessed 14 August 2008
^Hamilton, Sidney Graves, Gaisford Prize: Greek Verse (Oxford: 1877), online at books.google.co.uk, accessed 14 August 2008
^Hardie, William Ross, Gaisford Prize: Greek iambics (Oxford: B. H. Blackwell, 1884, 15 pp.)
^ abFoster, op. cit: "Russell, Cecil Henry St. Leger, born at Trinidad, West Indies, 18 April 1862 ; is. Richard, arm. TRINITY, matric. 15 Oct., 81, aged 19 (from Lancing coll.), scholar 81–5, B.A. 86, M.A. 88 (HONOURS: 2 classical mods. 82, Latin verse 82, Greek verse 83, Greek prose 84, 2 classics 85); a master at Clifton coll."
^House, Harry Hammond, Gaisford Prize: Greek iambics (Oxford: B. H. Blackwell, 1884, 11 pp.)
^Du Pontet, René L. A., Gaisford prize, 1889. Hexameter verse (Oxford: B. H. Blackwell, 1889, 15 pp.)
^Foster, Joseph, Oxford men, 1880–1892, with a record of their schools, honours and degrees (1893) online at us.archive.org, accessed 18 August 2008: "Du-Pontet, Rene Louis Alphonse, born in London 27 Aug., 1868; is. Marc Jules Henri, cler. TRINITY, matric. 15 Oct., 87, aged 19 (from St. Paul's school), scholar 86, B.A. 91 (HONOURS : i classical mods. 89, 2 classics 91, Hertford scholarship 88, Greek verse 89, Taylorian (French) scholarship 89, Latin verse 90, Craven scholarship 90, Latin essay 92, Derby scholarship 92) ; a master at Winchester"
^Cole, Edward L. D., Gaisford prize, 1896. Greek hexameters (Oxford, B. H. Blackwell, 1896, 13 pp.)
^ ab"University intelligence". The Times. No. 36771. London. 19 May 1902. p. 8.
^Rose, Kenneth, 'Grigg, Edward William Macleay, first Baron Altrincham (1879–1955), colonial administrator and politician' (rev.) in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, (online edition, January 2008, subscription required) accessed 16 August 2008
^Hunter, Leslie Whitaker, Gaisford Prize for Greek elegiac verse, translation from Tennyson's Lotos-eaters (Oxford: Blackwell, 1906)
^ abJ. A. Emerton, 'Driver, Sir Godfrey Rolles (1892–1975)', in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
^ abMillar, Fergus, Hannah M. Cotton, & Guy M. Rogers, Rome, the Greek World, and the East, page 401 online at books.google.co.uk, accessed 14 August 2008
^Page, Denys Lionel, Tragic iambics: A translation of Masefield's Pompey the Great, Act 2, Scene I (Gaisford prize for Greek verse) (Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1928)
^Lloyd-Jones, Hugh, 'Page, Sir Denys Lionel (1908–1978), classical scholar' in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004)
^Davidson, Brian, A translation of Addison's 'Cato', act IV, sc.iv, to act V, sc.1: Gaisford prize for Greek verse (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1930, 8 pp.)
^'BARRETT, (William) Spencer' in Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2007, online edition (subscription required) by Oxford University Press, December 2007: BARRETT, (William) Spencer, accessed 14 August 2008
^Luke, George R., Nikais : a Greek dialogue on superstition, Gaisford prize, Greek prose (Oxford: T. and G. Shrimpton, 1858, 23 pp.)
^Jones, Martin D. W., 'Bigg, Charles (1840–1908)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 (online (subscription site), accessed 16 August 2008
^Godley, John Arthur, Gaisford Prize: Phidias, or Concerning Sculpture: a Platonic dialogue (Oxford: T. and G. Shrimpton, 1870)
^Jeans, George Edward, Gaisford Prize: Iceland: in Herodotean prose (Oxford: George Shrimpton, 1871, 19 pp. )
^Bertie, David M., Scottish Episcopal Clergy, 1689–2000, p. 254: "FAUSSET, William Yorke, M.A. b. 1859... Gaisford Prize (Prose) 1880... D 1884, P 1887... Became headmaster of Ripon Grammar School, Yorks. in 1890"
^Russell, Cecil Henry St Leger, Gaisford prize, Greek prose: The Athenian state: a platonic dialogue (Oxford & London: B. H. Blackwell, 1884)
^Robertson, George Stuart, Herodotus in Britain, Gaisford prize for Greek prose (Oxford: Blackwell, 1895)
^Powell, L. F., 'Chapman, Robert William (1881–1960)', rev. M. Clare Loughlin-Chow, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 online edn, May 2006 (subscription site), accessed 16 August 2008
^de Melo, Wolfgang David Cirilo, The Early Latin Verb System, Preface, p. ix: "I should like to thank the anonymous committees that gave me the Gaisford Prize for Greek Verse (jointly) and the Gaisford Dissertation Prize (jointly). The latter was for my 2002b article, which forms the basis of Ch. 6."
^Or in full, John Albert Edward Claude Orde Angus Tankerton Tanville-Tankerton, fourteenth Duke of Dorset, Marquis of Dorset, Earl of Grove, Earl of Chastermaine, Viscount Brewsby, Baron Grove, Baron Petstrap, and Baron Wolock
