STRONG, Herbert Augustus (1841-1918)

classical scholar

third son of Rev. E. Strong, Exeter, England, was born at Exeter on 24 November 1841. He was educated at Winchester school and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and graduated B.A. in 1863 having taken a first-class in classical moderations the year before. He was for six years assistant professor of humanity at the university of Glasgow, and was the first warden of university hall. In 1872 he was appointed professor of classics at the university of Melbourne. His opportunities were not great for the university was still in its infancy, there being then fewer than 150 full-time students, and 10 years later the number was still under 300. Strong, however, identified himself with the life of the university, encouraged athletics and the formation of a university spirit, and advocated the cultivation of French and German in addition to the classics. In 1884 he became professor of Latin at the university of Liverpool and held the chair until his retirement in 1909. While at Liverpool he was president of the Liverpool Royal Institution and Liverpool guild of education, president of the French Society of Liverpool, and for 20 years was president of the university athletic club. He was also for 20 years examiner of secondary schools for the Scottish education department. In addition to minor educational works and editions of Catullus and Juvenal, Strong wrote with Kuno Meyer an Outline of a History of the German Language (1886), and with W. S. Logeman and B. I. Wheeler an Introduction to the Study of the History of Language (1891). He died in England on 13 January 1918. He was given the honorary degree of LL.D. at Glasgow in 1890. He was married twice, and was survived by two sons, of whom Sir Archibald T. Strong is noticed separately.

The Times, 14 January 1918; Who's Who, 1917; H. A. Strong, Address to the Students attending the Classical Lectures at the Melbourne University, 1879.