George Frederic Warner


Sir George Frederic Warner, FBA, FSA was an English archivist; he was Keeper of Manuscripts and Egerton Librarian at the British Museum from 1904 to 1911.

Career

Warner was born on 7 April 1845, the son of a solicitor, Isaac Warner, and his wife Susanna. He was educated at Christ's Hospital before going up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, to read classics, graduating in 1868. Three years later, he joined the British Museum's Department of Manuscripts. He was promoted to Assistant Keeper in 1888, and then Keeper of Manuscripts and Egerton Librarian in 1904. He retired from those positions in 1911, and lived out his retirement successively in Beaconsfield, Ealing and Weybridge, before dying on 17 January 1936; his wife, Marian Amelia survived him, as did their daughter, but their son predeceased him.
Warner was a specialist in palaeography and illuminated manuscripts. He started A Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King's Collections in 1894, although he did not oversee its eventual publication nearly thirty years later. He produced facsimiles for several illuminated manuscripts and a multi-volume set of the British Museum's principal manuscripts. According to F. G. Kenyon, his "most important works of scholarship" were The Buke of John Maundeuill and The Libell of Englyshe Polycye.

Honours and awards

Warner was awarded with an honorary degree Doctor of Letters from the University of Oxford in October 1902, in connection with the tercentenary of the Bodleian Library; he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy four years later, and in 1911 he was knighted. He was also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. In 1922, he was elected a Corresponding Member of the Institut de France.

Selected publications