The Dictionary-Makers
and he received an appointment which took him to Bermuda, where he lived for two years. During this time he became a keen naturalist, and did work so valuable that it attracted the attention of Sir William Hooker, of Kew, and Sir Richard Owen, both of whom urged him to devote himself to natural science. He, however, was irresistibly drawn to the ministry, and in 1846, having been ordained in the Free Church of Scotland, he became the colleague of Stephen Hislop, head of the Free Church Mission at Nagpoor, Central India. In 1855 he was compelled to return to England for his health, and presently was appointed resident tutor in the Theological College of the Presbyterian Church of England in London.
Dr. Hunter spent seventeen years in preparing the "Encyclopædic Dictionary." The office editor was John Williams, who chose the illustrations and exercised a general oversight of the work; the sub-editor was Henry Scherren, of whom something is said in another section of this chapter as a writer on natural history. Dr. Hunter, who also compiled for the House the "Concise Bible Dictionary," first published in 1893 as "The Sunday School Teacher's Manual," was not often seen at the Yard, but one who remembers his visits speaks of him as entering the office with bashful timidity and doffing his hat before being actually shown into Williams's room. "He was a man," says another, "of vast learning and scientific knowledge, of retiring disposition and of genuine piety."
The "Encyclopædic Dictionary" was ready for publication in 1889. Several editions were issued, among them one in 1895 by the proprietors of the Daily Chronicle as "Lloyd's Encyclopædic Dictionary." The work is now published in eight volumes, a supplementary volume having been added in 1903. From this work was compiled by Mr. Scherren, under the supervision of Mr. Williams, a one-volume English Dictionary, which remained in publication until, in 1919, it was replaced by "Cassell's New English Dictionary," edited by Dr. Ernest A. Baker.
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