Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Richardson, John (1741-1811?)

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RICHARDSON, JOHN (1741–1811?), orientalist, born in 1741, was son of George Richardson of Edinburgh, by Jean, daughter of George Watson of Woodend, co. Stirling, and descended from Sir James Richardson, of Smeaton, grandson of Robert Richardson (d. 1578) [q. v.] Sir James Richardson, reputed eighth baronet of Belmont, Jamaica (d. 1778), and Sir George Richardson, reputed ninth baronet (d. 1792), were his brothers. In 1767 he joined the Society of Antiquaries. He matriculated from Wadham College, Oxford, on 24 Nov. 1775, and was received as a fellow-commoner on the same day. He obtained the degree of M.A. by diploma on 28 Feb. 1780. In the following year he became a member of the Middle Temple. He died about 1811.

Richardson's first oriental publication was ‘A Specimen of Persian Poetry,’ consisting of a selection from Hâfiz, with historical and grammatical illustrations (1774, reprinted 1802); but he had previously rendered some assistance to Sir William Jones in the preparation of his ‘Persian Grammar’ (1771). In 1776 appeared Richardson's ‘Grammar of the Arabic Language,’ which went to a second edition in 1801 and a third in 1811, and has long since retired into oblivion. But the work with which his name is chiefly connected is his ‘Dictionary of Persian, Arabic, and English,’ printed in two volumes at the Clarendon Press in 1777, and apparently reissued in 1800. As a later editor, Francis Johnson [q. v.], remarked, this dictionary was little else than an abridgment of Meninski's ‘Oriental Thesaurus,’ with the omission of the Turkish words and some additions from Golius and Castell (F. Johnson, Pref. to Pers. Arab. Engl. Dict. 1852). The second volume was the converse of the first, English into Persian and Arabic, and was less successful. ‘The first volume of Richardson's “Dictionary” was reprinted in 1806, and the second volume in 1810, by the late distinguished oriental scholar, Sir Charles Wilkins [q. v.], who on that occasion compared the English version of Meninski with the original. In doing this, many alterations and numerous additions were made, and many mistakes corrected.’ In 1829 the work was again revised and greatly improved, especially on the Arabic side, by Francis Johnson, who in 1852 still further expanded the dictionary, which has finally been ‘reconstructed’ by Dr. Steingass [1892]. In its various forms the ‘Dictionary’ has proved of very great service to several generations of students of Persian. The prefatory ‘Dissertation on the Languages, Literature, and Manners of Eastern Nations,’ was separately issued in 1777, and republished in the following year with additions, including ‘Further Remarks’ in criticism of the opinions of Jacob Bryant [q. v.] on ancient mythology.

[Foster's Alumni Oxon. (1715–1888); Brit. Mus. Cat.; Lit. Memoirs of Living Authors, 1791, ii. 195; Gardiner's Wadham Reg. p. 14.]