Mynors Bright (1818–1883) was an English academic, president of

Magdalene College, Cambridge Magdalene College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary ...

, from 1853 to 1873. He was the decipherer of the diary of

Samuel Pepys Samuel Pepys ( ; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English writer and Tories (British political party), Tory politician. He served as an official in the Navy Board and Member of Parliament (England), Member of Parliament, but is most r ...

Life

Mynors Bright was the son of the physician John Bright, and of Eliza his wife. He was educated at

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in Shropshire (district), Shropshire, England. It is sited on the River Severn, northwest of Wolverhampton, west of Telford, southeast of Wrexham and north of Hereford. At the 2021 United ...

, and entered

, on 3 July 1835. He was a senior optime in mathematics, and took a second-class in classics. He proceeded B.A. in 1840, and M.A. in 1843. He became foundation-fellow, tutor, and eventually president of Magdalene, and was chosen

proctor Proctor (a variant of ''wikt:procurator, procurator'') is a person who takes charge of, or acts for, another. The title is used in England and some other English-speaking countries in three principal contexts: # In law, a proctor is a historica ...

in 1853. The Pepys Library being at Magdalene, Bright resolved to re-decipher the whole of Pepys' 'Diary,' and to this end he learnt the cipher from Thomas Shelton's ''Tachygraphy''. In 1873 he retired from Magdalene, and left Cambridge for London. His ''Pepys'' was printed between 1875 and 1879, and was published simultaneously in quarto and octavo, six volumes each. The edition included engravings of William Faithorne's ''Map of London'', 1658, and

John Evelyn John Evelyn (31 October 162027 February 1706) was an English writer, landowner, gardener, courtier and minor government official, who is now best known as a diary, diarist. He was a founding Fellow of the Royal Society. John Evelyn's Diary, ...

's ''Posture of the Dutch Fleet'', 1667. It corrected numerous errors occurring in the original decipherment, and inserted many passages hitherto suppressed but still left only about 80% of the diary in print. A complete reissue of Bright's transcript was edited by Henry Benjamin Wheatley in ten volumes in 1893–1899. Bright became paralysed about 1880, and died on 23 February 1883, aged 65. He never married, and bequeathed part of his interest in his ''Pepys'' to Magdalene College. His portrait was painted by F. Dickenson, and presented by his friends to his college.

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* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bright, Mynors 1818 births 1883 deaths Alumni of Magdalene College, Cambridge Fellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge 19th-century English writers