Wentworth Webster

Born in Uxbridge in 1828, Wentworth Webster became an Anglican clergyman and later settled in the French Basque Country, where he developed a deep interest in Basque life, language, and storytelling. He spent years gathering traditional tales, legends, and customs directly from local sources.

He is best known for Basque Legends, a collection that helped preserve stories from the region and brought them to a wider audience. Alongside his folklore work, he also wrote about Basque traditions and history, earning a lasting place among early English-language writers on Basque culture.

Webster died in 1907 in Sare, in the Basque Country he had studied so closely. His writing remains valuable both as a record of oral tradition and as a window into nineteenth-century efforts to document regional cultures.