Project news

Richard Palmer (1935-2005)

When editorial work on the Oxford Latin Dictionary came to an end in 1981, Bob Burchfield, then Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionaries, called his senior staff together and asked us whether we felt that Richard could transfer to work on the Supplement to the OED. Of course we had heard of Richard through his work on the OLD—indeed he was a well-known figure in Oxford at the time—and we knew that as a powerful classicist and botanist he would bring immense learning to the OED. We agreed with Bob's proposal nem. con. and soon Richard was ensconced in 37a St Giles', the Dictionary's offices in Oxford.

We had known Richard as a scholar, but not as a person. What soon emerged was a quiet and kind man, thoroughly conscientious, careful, loyal, and humorous. Each summer Richard would set off from Oxford on his botanical field-work, which resulted in 1987 in his book The Flowering Plants and Ferns of the Shetland Islands (co-written with Walter Scott), still the standard work on the subject.

In 1984 Richard joined the staff of the Shorter OED, and then in 1993, as editorial work on the Shorter drew to a close, he transferred to the revision of the full OED, where he remained until his retirement in 2000, after forty-two years' work on Oxford dictionaries.

It would be true to say that Richard never mastered computers. His interests lay in the information he was able to communicate in his entries, and the style by which they were graced. His advice was sought by colleagues both on his own specialist areas and much more generally, for he was a thoughtful commentator on so many aspects of life.

A story about Richard aptly illustrates his quiet single-mindedness. One day a group of his Dorset relatives was waiting for him to arrive by train at Dorchester station. The train arrived, and its passengers streamed off past his family. Gradually the train pulled out of the station with no sign of Richard. After a few minutes a lone figure was spotted at the end of the platform beaming broadly. It was, of course, Richard, who had spotted a rare dandelion from the train as it edged into the station and had left the train not for his family but for the adjacent fields to spend some time examining the specimen.

In his retirement Richard continued as an external botany consultant for the OED, as well as pursuing his other interests—his family (to whom he was devoted), his charitable work, his letter-writing, his local church—until illness overcame him. We will miss his enthusiasm, his scholarship, his kindness, and his courtesy. He was an old-style lexicographer much loved and respected in the modern age.