Contributors

The number of people who contributed quotations to the First Edition of the OED runs into four figures. Many individuals contributed thousands of quotations, but sheer volume is not the best measure of significance, as out of all of the quotations sent in, only a selection were included in the published dictionary.

The readers

The vast majority of people who contributed quotations did so by volunteering to read and excerpt particular works. Readers who offered to do this, many of them in response to the 1879 Appeal, could be supplied with pre-printed slips bearing the bibliographical details of the work, to save them the labour of writing out these details on each slip (an example of this can be seen on the slip submitted by W. C. Minor). Many people also sent in quotations from anything they happened to be reading - including Furnivall, who famously sent in huge quantities of cuttings from his daily newspaper.

Filling in the gaps

Once the work of compiling Dictionary entries had begun, the editors, subeditors, and assistants engaged in this work would become aware of gaps in the documentation illustrating a particular word. They would of course fill these gaps wherever they could by extracting further quotations from whatever works were available to them, but from a very early stage lists were issued to the general public of words for which additional quotations were particularly wanted. Of course, a higher proportion of the quotations sent in for words on these lists would be used than was the case for quotations extracted by readers working without knowledge of the editors' specific requirements. We still solicit the help of the public in the same way today.

Late arrivals

When Dictionary entries reached the proof stage, further quotations were supplied by another, crucial group of workers: those who read and commented on the proofs. The quotations supplied at this stage, while few in number compared to the large batches excerpted from particular sources, made an enormous difference to the final form of the text of the Dictionary.

Biographical information on staff and contributors

Peter Gilliver, Associate Editor, OED, has compiled an annotated list of the main contributors to the first edition.

In the case of the very well known ones listed below, we also provide some additional details and a sample of the slips they contributed.

• Alexander Beazeley (1830-1905)
• Frederick James Furnivall (1825-1910)
• Henry Hucks Gibbs (1819-1907)
• Fitzedward Hall (1825-1901)
• William Chester Minor (1835-1920)
• Henry Edward George Rope (1880-1978)
• Edith Thompson (1848-1929)
• John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973)