Jackson Knight letters to Dr Pollard

The collection is of six personal letters from Jackson Knight to Captain Pollard dated 1945, and four dated 1953-57. There is also a Latin letter and Greek verse by Knight dated 1936.

William Francis Jackson Knight, the elder son of George Knight and Caroline Louisa Jackson, was born on 20 October 1895. He was educated at Dulwich College and Hertford College Oxford, to which he won an open scholarship in Classics. He served as a despatch rider during the First World War. After a number of teaching jobs, including ten years at All Saints' School, Bloxham, he became a temporary lecturer in Classics at the University of St Andrews. The following year he accepted an Assistant Lectureship at Exeter, which he turned to a Lectureship the next year and a Readership in 1942. He remained at Exeter, a committed educationalist who inspired hundreds of students, until and after he retired. His publications included several works on Virgil, including Vergil's Troy (1932), Cummaean Gates (1936), Accentual Symmetry in Vergil (1939), Roman Vergil (1943), Vergil and Homer (1950), and Virgil's Aeneid, a translation (Penguin Classics, 1956). In addition he played a key role in extra-mural activities, encouraging young poets and establishing and commanding the University's Officer Training Corps. He established the international review Erasmus. He retired from teaching in 1961. His biography, by his brother George Wilson Knight, was published in 1975.

John Richard Thornhill Pollard (b1914), was the author of Birds in Greek Life and Myth (1977), and Seers, shrines and sirens: the Greek religious revolution in the sixth century BC (1965).

Usual EUL arrangements apply

The letters were donated to Exeter University Library through the office of Peter Wiseman in May 1987.

Unlisted

Usual EUL arrangements apply