George Ratcliffe Woodward › Texts

Educated at Caius College in Cambridge, England, George R. Woodward (b. Birkenhead, Cheshire, England, 1848; d. Highgate, London, England, 1934) was ordained in the Church of England in 1874. He served in six parishes in London, Norfolk, and Suffolk. He was a gifted linguist and translator of a large number of hymns from Greek, Latin, and German. But Woodward's theory of translation was a rigid one–he held that the translation ought to reproduce the meter and rhyme scheme of the original as well as its contents. This practice did not always produce singable hymns; his translations are therefore used more often today as valuable resources than as congregational hymns. With Charles Wood he published three series of The Cowley Carol Book (1901, 1902, 1919), two editions of Songs of Syon (1904, 1910), An Italian Carol Book (1920), and the Cambridge Carol Book<?cite> (1924). Much of the unfamiliar music introduced in The English Hymnal (1906) resulted from Woodward's research. He also produced an edition of the Piae Cantiones of 1582 (1910) and published a number of his translations in Hymns of the Greek Church (1922).

Bert Polman

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Woodward, George Ratcliffe, M.A. of G. & C. College, Cambridge; B.A. in honours 1872, M.A. 1875. Has held several curacies and two benefices, and is now (1907) Curate of St. Mark's, Marylebone Road, London. He has translated a number of hymns from the German and Latin, which are included in his Songs of Syon, 1904.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907)