John Nicholson

John Nicholson (1809–1886) was an English landowner and orientalist, known for his command of Hebrew and Arabic. Life He was the son of the Rev. Mark Nicholson of Barbados, the eldest in a family of six and born there; his mother was Lucy Reynold Ellcock. He matriculated at The Queen's College, Oxford in 1825, at age 16, graduating B.A. in 1830. He then went to the University of Göttingen to study under Heinrich Ewald. Ludwig Leichhardt, a friend there, mentioned that Nicholson left Göttingen around the end of 1833. Nicholson's translation of Ewald's Hebrew Grammar was published by 1835. In 1838 the Rev. Mark Nicholson died: to this point he had supported John Nicholson and his brother William with generous allowances. William had returned to the family home at Clifton, Bristol, and Leichhardt visited him there. Nicholson entered the University of Tübingen in 1838. He was awarded a doctorate there for a translation from the Arabic. Nicholson then returned to England, settling at Penrith, Cumberland. He was first at "Inglewood", Townhead, from 1840, moving in 1851 to Fellside. The Maronite scholar Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq paid an extended visit to him there, in winter 1851–2, examining manuscripts in Arabic. Another visitor, and a long-term correspondent, was Francis William Newman. The Swedenborgian traveller Rudolph Leonhard Tafel encountered there Mark Nicholson, John's youngest brother, in 1857.