The Murray Scriptorium

On 26 April 1878 James Murray, a member of Mill Hill staff, was invited to Oxford to meet the Delegates of the Oxford University Press with a view to taking on the job of editor of a new dictionary of the English language. This was to replace Johnson’s and to capture all the words then extant in the English speaking world in all their various shades of meaning. It would be a massive project, which required somebody with Murray’s knowledge and single-minded determination.

In preparation for the work ahead, Murray built a corrugated-iron shed in the grounds of Mill Hill School, called the Scriptorium, to house his small team of assistants as well as the flood of slips (bearing quotations illustrating the use of words to be defined in the dictionary) which started to flow in. As work continued on the early part of the dictionary, Murray gave up his job as a teacher and became a full time lexicographer.

To commemorate Murray’s pioneering work, Mill Hill built a permanent study centre to be known as the Murray Scriptorium. The Script, as it is known, is still used as a study centre and is now the hub of the School’s IT provision.