Halliwell Phillips

Halliwell-Phillips, James Orchard (1820-89), the Shakespearian scholar, was born in Chelsea.

He spent some time at Cambridge, making much use of the college libraries. His industry and learning procured his election as F.R.S. before he was nineteen. Among his numerous antiquarian publications the chief was a Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs and Ancient Customs (1816), compiled when still a young man. The great work of his life was, however, his edition of Shakespeare, to which a life was prefixed (1853-65). He afterwards also published Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare (7th edit., 1887). To him chiefly was due the purchase of the poet's estate by the Corporation of Stratford and the formation of the Shakespeare Museum. In 1872 he assumed the name of Phillips, his wife's grandfather.