Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Goodhugh, William
GOODHUGH, WILLIAM (1799?–1842), compiler, born about 1799, was for some time a bookseller at 155 Oxford Street. In order to render himself a competent bibliographer he acquired a knowledge of many of the oriental and most of the modern languages. He distinguished himself by his learned criticisms on John Bellamy's translation of the Bible in the ‘Quarterly Review’ for April 1818 and July 1820. In 1840 he issued proposals for a society to be called the ‘Dugdale Society,’ for the elucidation of British family antiquity by the publication of inedited documents and by systematic reference to those already printed, but the project was not encouraged. He died at Chelsea on 23 May 1842, aged 43, leaving a son and a daughter. During the three years preceding his death he had been engaged in the compilation of a bible cyclopædia, but he only lived to prepare the work down to the letter ‘r.’ It appeared in two folio volumes. He also published: 1. ‘The Gate to the French, Italian, and Spanish Unlocked’ (anon.), 12mo, London, 1827. 2. ‘The Gate to the Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac Unlocked by a new and easy method of acquiring the accidence’ (anon.), 8vo, London, 1827. 3. ‘The English Gentleman's Library Manual, or a Guide to the Formation of a Library of Select Literature,’ 8vo, London, 1827. 4. ‘Motives to the Study of Biblical Literature in a course of introductory lectures,’ 8vo, London, 1838; another edition, without Goodhugh's name, was issued in 1839.
[Gent. Mag. new ser. xviii. 215; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit. i. 699.]