Floyer Sydenham

Who was Floyer Sydenham?

Floyer Sydenham was an English scholar of Ancient Greek.

He was a Fellow and sometime Moderator of Philosophy at Wadham College, Oxford, and later Rector of Esher. He translated some of the Dialogues of Plato into English, and wrote a dissertation on Heraclitus, which failed of being appreciated. Involved in embarrassment, he was thrown into prison because he could not pay a small bill for provisions, and there died. His sad fate led directly to the foundation of the Royal Literary Fund.

The translator Thomas Taylor wrote a widely published panegyric to Sydenham, and completed his work on the Dialogues.

"Catherine, sister of John Floyer, married Humphrey Sydenham, of Dulverton, and became the mother of Floyer Sydenham, a man of great attainments, Fellow and sometime Moderator of Philosophy at Wadham College, Oxford. He was afterwards Rector of Esher until 1744. He published Notes on Plato, edited the Greater and Lesser Hippias; also a Dissertation on the Doctrine of Heraclitus, and Onomasticon Theologicum. He was so small a gainer in money by these works that he died in great poverty. The sympathy aroused for poor authors by his death led to the formation of the Literary Fund. His grandfather, Humphrey Sydenham, was one of the original Fellows of Wadham College, and the first to take the degree of Master of Arts from that college."