February 7, 1835

James A. H. Murray, (February 7, 1837 to July 26, 1915) the famous editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, was a family man as well as scholar. He proposed children should be given Anglo-Saxon names. The first nine of his eleven children had names their father insisted come "from Anglo-Saxon history and literature." That meant sons named Harold, "the champion", and Ethelbert, the "nobly bright." Wilfrid and Oswin followed this rule. Ethelbert, was remembered by his family, for among other things, the suspicion he had killed a cat, according to Katharine Maud Elisabeth Murray in her Caught in the Web of Words: James A.H. Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary (1977.) This is not elaborated further in her biography.

The children of the editor formed their own debating society where they discussed questions like whether someone could be called "educated" if they were not literate  in Latin and Greek. When their father moved the family from London, to Oxford, we learn there were pet doves, and a pet cat to transport.  No mention of dogs but Murray believed in second sight, convinced his life had been saved twice by the appearance of a black dog who disappeared when the danger was over. Ada his wife used homeopathic remedies but the family was robustly healthy in general. And a model in many ways.