David A. Slater

David Ansell Slater, FBA (1866–1938) was an English classicist, academic and schoolmaster. He was Professor of Latin successively at University College, Cardiff (1903–14); Bedford College, London (1914–20); and the University of Liverpool (1920–32). His 1927 apparatus criticus to Ovid's Metamorphoses was considered authoritative.

Early life and education David Ansell Slater was born on 7 October 1866 at Worcester, the only son of David Slater. After schooling at Bromsgrove, he went up to Magdalen College, Oxford, with a demyship in 1884, and matriculated at the University of Oxford the following year. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1889.

Schoolmaster In 1890, Slater was appointed an assistant master at Bath College,

At Liverpool, Slater published Sortes Vergilianæ in 1922, In 1929, he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy, the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences. He retired from Liverpool in 1932, being appointed to an emeritus professorship. He began work on an edition of the Metamorphoses itself for the Oxford Classical Texts series, but did not complete it (and an edition, by R. J. Tarrant, would only be finally published in the series in 2004).

Later life and death In retirement, Slater continued to live in the Wirral, at Hoylake. He died at the age of 72 on 27 October 1938. He was buried at Thurstaston, a village at the end of a five-mile trek from Hoylake that he enjoyed in his later years.

Retirement