LEE, SAMUEL (1783-1852) was born of poor parents at Longnor, Shropshire, given an elementary education in the parish and apprenticed at 12 to a carpenter. Fond of reading and languages, he mastered Greek and Hebrew by private study before he was 25 and made progress in Chaldee, Syriac, Persian and Hindustani. Marriage compelled him to work harder at his trade, but he became a teacher in Bowdler's foundation school in Shrewsbury. Under the auspices of the Church Missionary Society he entered Queen's College, Cambridge (1813), where he graduated (B.A. 1818; M.A. 1819; B.D. 1827; D.D. 1833). In 1819 he became professor of Arabic, and in 1831 regius professor of Hebrew. A profound linguist, he made a study of the Maori language with Hongi, Waikato and Kendall, and successfully produced the first Grammar and Vocabulary of the New Zealand Language (1820). Lee died on 16 Dec 1852.

D.N.B.; Hocken in Trans. N.Z. Inst.; Marsden, L. and J., Lieutenants.

Reference: Volume 1, page 263

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