Norman MacColl (1843–1904) was a Scottish man of letters, known as a Hispanist and editor of the '' Athenæum''.

Life

Born on 31 August 1843 at 28 Ann Street, Edinburgh, he was the only child of Alexander Stewart MacColl and his wife Eliza Fulford of Crediton. His father was a classicist and kept a school in Edinburgh; he was brought up at home with his first cousin, Alice Gaunter, who married James R. Jackson. MacColl entered

Christ's College, Cambridge Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 170 graduate students. The college was founded by William Byngham in 1437 as ...

, in 1862, but migrated next year to Downing College, and was elected a scholar there in 1865. His coach Richard Shilleto encouraged outside reading, and he took a second class in the classical tripos of 1866. In 1869, He was elected a fellow of Downing, having won the Hare Prize in 1868. He graduated B.A. in 1866 and proceeded M.A. in 1869. He became a student of

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...

on 21 January 1872, and was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

on 17 November 1875. At Cambridge, MacColl had begun an acquaintance with

Sir Charles Dilke Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, 2nd Baronet, PC (4 September 1843 – 26 January 1911) was an English Liberal and Radical politician. A republican in the early 1870s, he later became a leader in the radical challenge to Whig control of the Liber ...

, proprietor of the ''Athenæum'', and in 1871 Dilke appointed him editor of the magazine. He was in post up to the end of 1900, working without an assistant until 1896. As editor, he watched the style of contributors, and they could be corrected in published correspondence. His replacement in 1900 as editor was his assistant, Vernon Horace Rendall (1869–1960). MacColl ventured into society comparatively little, but occasionally visited

Westland Marston John Westland Marston (30 January 1819 – 5 January 1890) was an English dramatist and critic. Life He was born at Boston, Lincolnshire, on 30 January 1819, was son of the Rev. Stephen Marston, minister of a Baptist congregation. In 1834, ...

's Sunday parties. He went in later life to the Athenæum Club, was one of Leslie Stephen's "Sunday Tramps", and played golf. He travelled on the Continent in his vacations, making one Spanish tour. MacColl died unmarried, suddenly at his residence, 4 Campden Hill Square,

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...

, on 16 December 1904, from heart failure. He was buried at Charlton cemetery, Blackheath, in the same grave with his parents.

Works

MacColl concentrated on the study of Spanish from 1874. He published translations: *''Select Plays of Calderon'' (1888). *Cervantes, ''Exemplary Novels'' (Glasgow, 2 vols., 1902), in the collection edited by James Fitzmaurice-Kelly. *''Miscellaneous Poems of Cervantes'' (1912). His Hare Prize essay, ''Greek Sceptics from Pyrrho to Sextus'', was published.

Norman MacColl lectures

MacColl endowed by will a named lectureship at Cambridge in Spanish and Portuguese, and left his Spanish books to the Cambridge University Library. The first Norman MacColl lecturer was James Fitzmaurice-Kelly, in 1908. Initially the lectures occurred every four years, and Fitz-Maurice Kelly was appointed again in 1912.

Notes

Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:MacColl, Norman 1843 births 1904 deaths Fellows of Downing College, Cambridge Scottish magazine editors Scottish translators Writers from Edinburgh 19th-century British translators