Frederick Gard Fleay

Born in Deptford on September 5, 1831, he studied at King's College London and Trinity College, Cambridge, where his mathematical training later influenced the way he analyzed verse and authorship. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1856 and spent about twenty years working in education as a teacher and headmaster before leaving the Church in 1884.

He is best remembered as an influential and very prolific Shakespeare scholar. Fleay played an active role in the early New Shakspere Society, and his work on metrical tests tried to use patterns of verse to date plays and distinguish one dramatist's hand from another. That approach was debated even in his own time, but it made him an important figure in the development of Shakespeare studies.

His writing ranged widely across English drama and literature, including books such as A Chronicle History of the Life and Work of William Shakespeare, A Chronicle History of the London Stage, and A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama. No suitable confirmed portrait image was available from the pages I checked, so a profile image is not included here.