Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Slaughter, Edward
SLAUGHTER, EDWARD (1655–1729), hebraist, born in Herefordshire in 1655, entered the Society of Jesus on 7 Sept. 1673, and was ordained priest on 28 March 1682, in which year he was sent to the mission of Swaffham, Norfolk. He was appointed to teach Hebrew in the college of the English jesuits at Liège about 1677; he subsequently taught mathematics there, and eventually became professor of theology. He was professed of the four vows on 2 Feb. 1690–1, and was declared rector of the college at Liège in 1701. When John Churchill, earl (and subsequently duke) of Marlborough, took the citadel and city of Liège in 1702, he paid the rector a visit, and showed him special courtesy. Slaughter afterwards became rector of the jesuit colleges at St. Omer and Ghent. He passed the last seven years of his life, sine officio, at Liège, where he died on 20 Jan. 1728–9.
His works are: 1. ‘Conclusiones ex universa theologia propugnandæ in Collegio Anglicano Societatis Jesu Leodii,’ Liège, 1696, 4to. 2. ‘Grammatica Hebraica brevi et nova methodo concinnata, qua cito, facile, solide, linguæ sanctæ rudimenta addisci possunt,’ Amsterdam, 1699, 12mo; Rome, 1705, 1760, 1823, 1834, 1851, 1861, 8vo; Paris, 1857 and 1866 (revised and corrected by J. J. L. Bargès, professor of Hebrew at the Sorbonne).
[Foley's Records, v. 595, vii. 715; De Backer's Bibl. des Écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus, 1876, iii. 830; Oliver's Jesuit Collections, p. 192; Paquot's Hist. Littéraire des Pays-Bas, 1765, iii. 291.]