James Morwood

Sheridan attended Harrow School from 1762–68, and some of his papers were archived there.

Morwood produced many school and house plays at Harrow, in the process inspiring some notable thespians.

He cast Benedict Cumberbatch as Eliza Doolittle in Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, in which Cumberbatch “acted everyone else off the stage.” He also gave the 'green light' to Richard Curtis to direct ‘’The Erpingham Camp’’, a controversial play by Joe Orton, loosely based on The Bacchae by Euripides.

Later, Curtis commented that Morwood’s support had helped him understand that it was all right ‘’to push boundaries and to be funny.”

They met in New York in 1939, married there and then boarded a ship to the UK after war was declared.

Morwood spent his first years in Ulster before his family moved to Oxshott in Surrey after the Second World War.

He attended Danes Hill preparatory school, where he studied Greek from the age of 11.

He won a scholarship to St John's School, Leatherhead, followed by an Exhibition at Peterhouse, Cambridge where he sat Part I of the Classical Tripos (taught by E.J.Kenney) and Part II of the English Tripos (taught by Anne Barton).

He then moved on to Merton College, Oxford to obtain his Diploma of Education.

James Henry Weldon Morwood (25 November 1943 – 10 September 2017) was an English classicist and author.

He taught at Harrow School, where he was Head of Classics, and at Oxford University, where he was a Fellow of Wadham College, and also Dean.

He wrote almost thirty books, ranging from biography to translations and academic studies of Classical literature.

James Henry Weldon Morwood was born in 1943 in Belfast, the second son of James and Kathleen Morwood.

His father was a doctor from Belfast, his mother a Californian and graduate of UCLA.

James Morwood taught Classics and English at Harrow School from 1966 to 1996, and was Head of Classics from 1979.

His additional role as school Librarian provided him with some of the material for his first book, The Life and Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

Morwood had a long association with the Joint Association of Classical Teachers and with its Greek Summer School, which was launched in London in 1968, continued at Dean Close School, Cheltenham, and is currently held annually at Bryanston School in Dorset.

The JACT Summer School has played an important part in the preservation of ancient Greek as a significant subject in the UK.

Morwood taught beginners, intermediate and advanced groups at the school regularly since 1970.

He served as its Director of Studies, and on seven occasions as its Director, starting in 1986 when he took over from the founder, David Raeburn.

He also taught adult courses on Classics and English Literature at the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education at Madingley Hall.

He was editor of Ad familiares, the on-line publication of Classics for All.

Morwood's many translations and commentaries on classical texts demonstrate his enthusiasm for both Latin poetry, and Greek tragedy.

Robin Mitchell-Boyask has this to say about Morwood's book The Plays of Euripides:

In his review of Morwood's translation of Medea, Adrial Poole comments on the lines the chorus sing just before Jason's final entrance: “with a little room to breathe, Morwood's lyrics find a quietly effective rhythm of their own:”

The Medea was part of a major project undertaken with Oxford University Press to provide new translations of all 19 of Euripides’ extant plays, including the disputed Rhesus.

His best-known work is The Oxford Latin Course (1987–92, with Maurice Balme, new ed, 2012), whose popularity in the USA led to the publication of a specifically American edition in 1996.

Morwood is credited with helping to ensure the survival - even flourishing - of Classical education into the twenty-first century, both in the UK and the USA.

Morwood was appointed president of the London Association of Classical Teachers for 1995–1996, and subsequently president of the Joint Association of Classical Teachers (JACT) for 1999–2001.

In 1996 Morwood moved to Oxford University as Grocyn Lecturer in charge of the language teaching for the Classics Faculty, retiring from this role in 2003.

Also in 1996 he was elected to a Fellowship at Wadham College, where he taught and served as Dean of Degrees, and Steward of Common Room.

In 2000 he became Dean of Wadham College, holding the position until 2006.

Nevertheless, the availability of a fresh translation of Rhesus did lead to at least one new dramatisation of that play, presented at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, under the direction of George Adam Kovacs in 2001.

He was appointed editor of the Wadham Gazette in 2003, and became an Emeritus Fellow in 2006.

He continued to teach Wadham undergraduates Greek tragedy, Homer and prose composition.

This collection was published in five volumes as the Oxford World's Classics Euripides series (republished in a revised edition in 2016).

Morwood translated and provided notes for three volumes in the series: Medea and other plays, Bacchae and other plays, and The Trojan Women and other plays.

He also provided notes for the other two volumes, Orestes and Other Plays, and Heracles and Other Plays which were translated by Robin Waterfield.

Introductions to all five volumes were provided by the classicist Edith Hall.

The Oxford translations are in prose rather than verse, and Otto Steinmayer observes that "Morwood was quite plainly not attempting to translate Euripides in a striking, fanciful, poetic way. . . these versions are not for the stage."