Wentworth Webster

Wentworth Webster, born June 16 1828 in Uxbridge (Middlesex, England), died in Sare (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) April 2 1907, was an Anglican clergyman, collector of folk tales of the Basque Country and scholar.

Biography

After studying in a private school in Brighton, at the age of 21 he entered Lincoln College, Oxford. He graduated in 1852. In 1854, he started as a deacon in the parish of Cloford, Somerset. His fragile health delayed his ordination as a priest, who was held in 1861. It was then allowed to exercise his ministry to the English residents in France.

He had previously travelled to Scotland, Germany, Switzerland, the Azores, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. From 1862 to 1863, he travelled to Egypt and then he settled in the southwest of France. He started as a tutor in Bagneres-de-Bigorre — where he met his future wife — then in Biarritz. Finally it was the first chaplain of the new Anglican church established in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, 1869-1882. During those years, he had four girls and a boy who all spoke fluent Basque, and he himself could get by enough to initiate the collection of traditional tales from the local people. In 1877 he published the first edition of his Basque Legends. He was helped by the Basque scholar Julien Vinson, who became his friend.

Webster regularly published various books, like a book on Spain, entitled precisely Spain (1882). That year, he resigned from his post at the parish of Saint-Jean-de-Luz and settled in Sare, in the heart of Labourd. He continued to write religious and erudite articles on the Basque Country, mainly for British magazines, but also for local and regional ones. He often travelled to the neighbouring countries, and also to Bayonne, where he met his friends, among them Antoine d'Abbadie. He himself receives many visitors, including William Ewart Gladstone, British Prime Minister. In 1901 he wrote Les Loisirs d'un étranger en Pays basque, a book not for sale now extremely rare.

In March 1907, King Edward VII went to Sara for watching a game of Basque pelota played in his honour. Webster, too weakened by illness, could not go to greet the king. He died on April 2, when he was drafting an article for the Encyclopedia Britannica, on the Basque Country.

Works

• Basque Legends, London, Griffith and Farran, 1877.

• Spain, Collection Foreign Countries and British Colonies, Simpson Low, London, 1882.

• Grammaire cantabrique basque par Pierre d'Urte (1712), published by Wentworth Webster, Bagnères-de-Bigorre, 1900.

• Les Loisirs d'un étranger au Pays basque, Châlons-sur-Saöne, Imprimerie française et orientale E. Bertrand, 1901.

Sources

"Wentworth Webster (1828-1907)", by Philippe Veyrin, in Wentworth Webster, Légendes Basques, Anglet, Éditions Aubéron, 2005