RootsChat.Com

General => The Common Room => Topic started by: mahees on Monday 12 November 07 11:29 GMT (UK)

Title: C. O. Sylvester Mawson - Roget's Thesaurus Editor
Post by: mahees on Monday 12 November 07 11:29 GMT (UK)

Hi all,

   I've just discovered that author Christopher Orlando Sylvester Mawson (C. O. Sylvester Mawson) who wrote 'The Dictionary of Foreign Terms' among others, is distantly related to my husband. Not much of a claim to fame, I know, but the best I've found in my tree  :D

Mawson was born in Richmond, Yorshire in 1870 and I have him up until the 1891 census, and I have found an 1892 marriage for him in Dartford, but I lose him after that.

I was wondering if anyone knows where I can find out more about his life; I've tried wikipedia and there appears to be no reference to him there (so not that famous then!). Does anyone know where I might find a bio on him, or something like that?

Thanks in anticipation
Erin  :)

Title: Re: C. O. Sylvester Mawson - Roget's Thesaurus Editor
Post by: stanmapstone on Monday 12 November 07 11:41 GMT (UK)

Apparently he died in 1938.

Stan

Title: Re: C. O. Sylvester Mawson - Roget's Thesaurus Editor
Post by: mahees on Monday 12 November 07 11:47 GMT (UK)

Hi Stan,
    Do you know where? I can't see him in the death indexes at a glance.
Thanks
Erin  :)

Title: Re: C. O. Sylvester Mawson - Roget's Thesaurus Editor
Post by: stanmapstone on Monday 12 November 07 11:54 GMT (UK)

Hi Erin,
From Google Book Search (Snippet View)

Twentieth Century Authors: A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Literature - Page 939
by Stanley Kunitz, Howard Haycraft - Biography & Autobiography - 1973
 MAWSON, CHRISTOPHER ORLANDO SYLVESTER (1870-November 4, 1938), ...

There is no sign of him in the Death Indexes :(

Stan

Title: Re: C. O. Sylvester Mawson - Roget's Thesaurus Editor
Post by: mahees on Monday 12 November 07 11:59 GMT (UK)

hmmm....
Maybe he emigrated.  ???
Can't find anything on findmypast though. Apart from an O S Mawson to South Africa in 1898. Doesn't sound that likely though. You'd think there'd be some info on him somewhere  ???

Title: Re: C. O. Sylvester Mawson - Roget's Thesaurus Editor
Post by: EditorMark on Saturday 12 July 25 19:15 BST (UK)

I came here after having purchased a copy of "The Dictionary Companion" and Googling the author. I came across a New York Times obituary from 1938 (Saturday, Nov. 5, page 19):

C. O. SYLVESTER MAWSON
BOSTON, Nov. 4 (AP) — C.O. Sylvestor Mawson, well-known lexicographer, suffered a heart attack tonight while motoring with his wife and died just after he brought his car to a stop. His age was 66.

Title: Re: C. O. Sylvester Mawson - Roget's Thesaurus Editor
Post by: DianaCanada on Sunday 13 July 25 00:21 BST (UK)

There are a few references to him in The British Newspaper Archive, but I can see nothing about his death.

Title: Re: C. O. Sylvester Mawson - Roget's Thesaurus Editor
Post by: jorose on Sunday 13 July 25 05:55 BST (UK)

1930 census suggests he came over in 1908
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XQ5W-5FC?lang=en

1910 shows a sister, but no children:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M5SC-1WB?lang=en
 (indexing is wrong; original shows born England)
His sister passed away in 1916: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9RTB-9HKD?view=fullText&keywords=Mawson%2CS%2CO&lang=en&groupId=

This may be him in transit to India in 1908
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QV9W-166H?lang=en