author
Robert Ornsby
1820–1889
Best known for learned biographies and classical scholarship, this 19th-century English writer moved between Oxford, Dublin, and Catholic intellectual circles. His books on St. Francis de Sales and James Robert Hope-Scott show a patient, deeply informed biographical style.
1 Audiobook
Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2
by Robert Ornsby
About the author
Robert Ornsby was an English classical scholar and biographer, born in 1820 and dead in Dublin on April 21, 1889. He studied at Lincoln College, Oxford, took a first in literae humaniores, and later became a fellow of Trinity College, Oxford.
His career linked scholarship with Catholic education. Sources describe him as a professor of Greek and Latin literature at the Catholic University of Ireland, and later as a fellow of the Royal University of Ireland and an examiner in Greek. He also spent a short period as librarian at Arundel Castle.
Ornsby is chiefly remembered for substantial works of biography and religious history, including The Life of St. Francis de Sales and the two-volume Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott. The surviving record suggests a writer valued for careful learning rather than literary showiness, which gives his work a steady, thoughtful character.