WOODHOUSE, William John (1866-1937)

classical scholar

son of R. Woodhouse, was born at Clifton, Westmorland, England, on 7 November 1866. He was educated at Sedbergh Grammar School and won an open exhibition to Queen's College, Oxford. He graduated with a first class in classical and a first class in the final school of Literae Humaniores, was appointed Newton student at the British school at Athens, and during 1890 travelled in Greece and directed the excavations at Megalopolis. After another year at Oxford he was elected Craven fellow and returned to Greece for two years, his main work being in connexion with the explorations at Aetolia. He was awarded the Conington memorial prize at Oxford in 1894 for an essay which was expanded into a substantial volume, Aetolia. Its Geography, Topography and Antiquities, published in 1897. He had by then become classical lecturer in the university of North Wales, and in 1900 was appointed lecturer in ancient history and political philosophy at the university of St Andrews, Scotland. He became professor of Greek at the university of Sydney in 1901 and held the chair until his death. He was also honorary curator of the Nicholson museum of antiquities at the university, which showed considerable development under his care.

Woodhouse was an inspiring teacher. His wide scholarship was relieved by both wit and humour, and he was a most painstaking researcher; it was probably the humility of a true scholar that accounted for so much of his work being delayed publication until his later years. These qualities were recognized by his students and he gained both their respect and affection. He shared in the life of the university, helped in the organization of the union, and for a period was dean of the faculty of arts and a member of the senate. Apart from a few classical textbooks and The Tutorial History of Greece, published in 1904 (fourth impression 1915), Woodhouse for many years published nothing except some contributions to the Journal of Hellenic Studies. In 1930 he brought out The Composition of Homer's Odyssey, a valuable and original contribution to Homeric scholarship. This was followed in 1933 by King Agis of Sparta and his Campaign in Arkadia in 418 B.C. His task was to do belated justice to King Agis "one of those born leaders who, taking no counsel of their fears, but accepting with serene self-reliance risks that appal a mediocre mind, compel their astonished adversaries to taste the bitterness of decisive and sometimes humiliating defeat" (p. 125). Woodhouse's adverse criticism of Thucydides's description of the battle of Mantineia did not find universal acceptance, but "he seems to have established that Thucydides's account is highly partisan designed to show Agis in the role of lucky blunderer" (The Times, 28 October 1937). His last book, Solon the Liberator, a Study of the Agrarian problem in Attika in the Seventh Century, was completed just before his death and published in 1938. He died at Sydney on 26 October 1937 leaving a widow, a son and a daughter. In addition to the works already mentioned Woodhouse was the author of The Fight for an Empire, a translation from Tacitus publislied in 1931, and he was also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Biblica and the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.

The Times, 28 October 1937; The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 October 1937: S. Angus, biographical note in Solon the Liberator; Calendar of the University of Sydney, 1938, p. 1045; E. Morris Miller, Australian Literature.