Born at Redcar House in
Redcar
, Yorkshire, Edmundson was the eldest son of the Rev. George Edmundson of Redcar and
St Leonards-on-Sea
, by his marriage to Elizabeth Anne, daughter of William Whytehead of
Thirsk
. His father was
lord of the manor
of
Agglethorpe
in
Coverdale
. He was educated at
St Peter's School
, York, and at
Magdalen College, Oxford
, where he was a demy. He took a first class in
Mathematical Moderations
in 1869 and another first in Maths in 1870, graduated BA in 1871, won the Senior Hall Greek Testament Prize in 1873, and proceeded
MA
in 1874.
[1]
In 1871 Edmundson was elected to an Open
Fellowship
at
Brasenose
and was Mathematical Lecturer there from 1871 to 1880 and also a college tutor from 1875 to 1880. He was ordained a
deacon
of the
Church of England
in 1872 and a priest in 1874. From 1875 to 1881 he was Junior Bursar of his college and in the university was Mathematical Examiner for Final Honour Schools for 1875?76.
[1]
[2]
In 1880, Edmundson accepted the
benefice
of
Northolt
,
Middlesex
, where he remained until 1906, when he became
Vicar
of St Saviour's, Upper Chelsea, retiring in 1920. He was also
Rural Dean
of
Chelsea
from 1916 to 1920.
[1]
[2]
From 1896 to 1899, Edmundson worked for the
British Government
in the matter of a Boundary Arbitration between
British Guiana
and
Venezuela
,
[1]
[3]
and from 1901 to 1904 he worked for the government again on a Boundary Arbitration between British Guiana and
Brazil
.
[1]
His work was research, under the direction of
Sir Charles Alexander Harris
, who later wrote "To the staff who worked under my direction in the two Guiana arbitration cases, where extreme accuracy and patience were required, I find it difficult to record my indebtedness. Mr de Villiers, my co-editor of Storm,
[4]
and Dr Edmundson were with me throughout."
[5]
One of Edmundson's major works,
The Church of Rome in the First Century
, appeared in 1913, having originated as the
Bampton Lectures
for that year. Much later,
J. A. T. Robinson
praised it highly. In his
Redating the New Testament
(1977), he noted that Edmundson's book had largely been ignored at the time, perhaps because he was not a professional
New Testament
scholar and his conclusions were radically different from the consensus of the "higher criticism" of his day.
[2]
[6]
In 1917?18, Edmundson worked for the
Foreign Office
's Historical Department.
[1]
He married Florence Brooke Turner, the daughter of Joseph Brooke Turner, of
Edgerton
, Yorkshire, and they had one son and one daughter.
[1]
He retired to a house named the Villa Nicette, at
Saint-Raphael
in the south of France and died on 3 July 1930.
[1]
- Milton and Vondel, a Curiosity of Literature
, 1885
- The Swedish Legend in British Guiana: an historical investigation
(1900)
[3]
- 'The Revolt of the Netherlands', 'William the Silent' and 'The Dutch Republic' in
Cambridge Modern History
, vol. III
The Wars of Religion
(1904)
- Archbishop Laud and his Work
, 1905
- 'The Administrations of John de Witt and William of Orange (1651?88)' in
Cambridge Modern History
, vol. V
The Age of Louis XIV
(1908)
- Anglo-Dutch Rivalry in the First Half of the 17th Century
(The Ford Lectures), 1910
- Intellect and Power, the Pride Sermon
, 1912
- The Church in Rome in the First Century: an examination of various controverted questions relating to its history, chronology, literature and traditions: eight lectures preached before the University of Oxford
(Longmans, Green, 1913)
[8]
- History of Holland
(Cambridge History Series), 1922
- The Journal, Travels, and Labours of Father
Samuel Fritz
, in the River Amazon, 1686?1723
, translation from Spanish, edited for the
Hakluyt Society
, 1922
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
n
EDMUNDSON, Rev. George
, in
Who Was Who
(A. & C. Black, 1920?2008; online edition by
Oxford University Press
, December 2007 (subscription required), accessed 21 December 2010
- ^
a
b
c
John Arthur Thomas Robinson
,
Redating the New Testament
(Westminster Press, 1976), p. 349
- ^
a
b
Hugh Robert Mill, '
Geographical Literature of the month
' in
The Geographical Journal
, vol. 15 (1900), p. 668, online at jstor.org (subscription required): "
The Swedish Legend in British Guiana. An historical investigation
by the Rev. George Edmundson. Size 13 x 9. Presented by E. F. im Thurn, Esq. British Guiana ? Boundary. British Guiana Boundary. Arbitration with the United States of Venezuela."
- ^
Storm van 's Gravesande: the rise of British Guiana
- ^
Sir C. Alexander Harris, ed.,
A Relation of a Voyage to Guiana by Robert Harcourt 1613
(Hakluyt Society, 1928), p. 1, footnote 1
- ^
Biography of George Edmundson
at ccel.org, accessed 21 December 2010
- ^
The Oxford magazine
vol. 27 (1909), p. 136: "George Edmundson, MA, late Fellow of Brasenose College, to be Ford's Lecturer for the year 1909?10."
- ^
outline
at books.google.com