The late Dr Charles Talbut Onions (1873-1965) was one of the four editors of the New English dictionary on historical principles, first published 1888-1928 and reissued as the Oxford English dictionary in 1933. In the words of the "Historical Introduction' to the OED: "a third [editor] was added in 1914, when Charles Talbut Onions, who had at Dr Murray's invitation joined the staff in 1895, and had between 1906 and 1913 prepared special portions of M, N, R, and S, began with a separate staff to edit the later portions of that letter (Su-Sz)".
The National Library acquired the collection of books assembled and used by Dr Onions for his work on the dictionary - who worked on Su-Sz from 1914-1919, XYZ from 1920-1921 and Wh-Wo from 1922-1927. He also revised and edited the Shorter Oxford English dictionary published in 1933.
The collection consists of about 4,000 volumes on English philology, including over 2,500 monographs, a large quantity of pamphlets, complete runs of learned journals and modern facsimile editions of medieval manuscripts. There are two titles from the sixteenth century (Thre godlye and notable sermons (1545) by William Payn and Scholia in septem tragoedias (1544) by Euripides), about forty-five from the seventeenth century and about eighty-five from the eighteenth century. Much of Dr Onions' own manuscript correspondence is included in the collection and is housed in the Manuscript Collection.
The pre-1801 component of this collection is housed with the Library's Rare Book Collection. Dr Onions wrote on various aspects of the English language, and his writings may be identified from A List of the published writings of Charles Talbut Onions (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1948) held at P 012 ONI and RB DNS 4040. His own writings are represented in his library.
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