Henry B. Wheatley

Henry Benjamin Wheatley FSA (1838–1917) was a British author, editor, and indexer. His London Past and Present was described as his most important work and "the standard dictionary of London".^[1]

Life

He was a posthumous son of Benjamin Wheatley, an auctioneer, and his wife Madalina; the bibliographer Benjamin Robert Wheatley was his brother, and passed on expertise.^[2]

Wheatley was Assistant Secretary to Royal Society of Arts, 1879-1909; founding member (1903) and President of the Samuel Pepys Club, 1903-1910; Vice-President of the Bibliographical Society, 1908-1910, and its President 1911-1913.^[3] In 1909 he was the President of the Sette of Odd Volumes, an English bibliophile dining-club.^[4][5]

Works

Articles

• "Folk-Lore Terminology". Folk-Lore Journal. 2: 340–347. 1884.
• "Celebrated Birthplaces: Samuel Johnson at Lichfield". The Antiquary: 233–239. December 1884.
• "Post-Restoration Quartos of Shakespeare's Plays". The Library. Third Series. 4 (15): 237–269. July 1913.

Books

• Of Anagrams: A Monograph Treating of Their History from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time. Williams & Norgate, 1862.
• "Round about Piccadilly and Pall Mall, or, A ramble from Haymarket to Hyde Park, 1870
• What is an Index?, 1878
• Samuel Pepys and the World He Lived In, 1880, 1st edition; online text, 5th edition, 1907 from hathitrust.org
• The Bibliographer, 1884.
• How to Form a Library, 1887
• The Dedication of Books to Patron and Friend, 1887
• How to Catalogue a Library. Published by Eliot Stock 1889.
• Remarkable bindings in the British Museum, 1889
• London Past and Present: Its History, Associations, and Traditions. John Murray, 1891.
• How to Make an Index, 1902.
• The Story of London, [Mediæval Towns Series] 1904^[6]
• Literary Blunders, 1905

As editor

• Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britain Tongue by Alexander Hume at Project Gutenberg, 1865; 2nd edition, 1870
• Editor, Books in Chains by William Blades (includes Wheatley's introduction and brief bio of Blades, whom he knew), 1892

References

1. "The London Topographical Society: A brief account" by Stephen Marks in The London Topographical Record, 1980, pp. 1-10.
2. Lee, J. D. "Wheatley, Henry Benjamin". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/38397. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
3. http://www.bibsoc.org.uk/presidents.htm
4. "The father of British indexing: Henry Benjamin Wheatley" by J. D. Lee
5. "Wheatley, Henry Benjamin". Who's Who, 1912: p. 2259.
6. "Review: The Story of London by Henry B. Wheatley". The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art. 98: 369. 17 September 1904.

External links

• Works by Henry B. Wheatley at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Henry B. Wheatley at Internet Archive
• Works by Henry B. Wheatley at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)