Wentworth Webster

Born in Uxbridge and active in the 19th century, Wentworth Webster was an Anglican clergyman, scholar, and folklorist whose name is closely tied to the Basque Country. He is especially remembered for collecting and publishing Basque oral traditions, helping bring those stories to English-speaking readers.

Webster spent many years in Sare, in the French Basque region, where he gathered material directly from local storytellers. That close contact with everyday life in the area shaped his best-known work, Basque Legends (1879), and supported his wider interest in Basque language, history, and culture.

Alongside his folklore work, he also wrote on Spain and left a reputation as a thoughtful interpreter of Basque life for readers outside the region. Although some catalogues list his birth year as 1829, reliable biographical sources also give 1828, so that detail is not entirely consistent across records.