Harold Orton

Harold Orton (23 October 1898 – 7 March 1975) was a British dialectologist and professor of English language and Medieval Literature at the University of Leeds.

Early life Orton was born in Byers Green, County Durham, on 23 October 1898 and was educated at King James I Grammar School, in Bishop Auckland, and at the University of Durham. He left university in 1917 to enrol in the Durham Light Infantry in which he was commissioned as a lieutenant. He was wounded severely in 1918, never regaining full use of his right arm, and was invalided out of the army in 1919. He insisted to army surgeons that his arm not be amputated.

Academic career After leaving the army, in 1918 Orton went to Merton College, Oxford, where he studied under Henry Cecil Kennedy Wyld and Joseph Wright, author of the English Dialect Dictionary (McDavid, 1976). His thesis from Oxford, on the dialect of his native Byers Green, was later published as a book.

Orton became head of the Department of English Language at the University of Sheffield in 1939 but secondment to the British Council interrupted that work until the end of World War II.

Orton was a visiting professor at the Universities of Kansas (1965, 1967, 1968), Iowa (1966) and Tennessee (1970, 1972, 1973) and at Belmont University, Nashville (1971).

Death and legacy Orton died in Leeds on 7 March 1975 following a stroke.

An overview of Orton's career was published by Craig Fees in 1991 as the first part in a series on dialect and folk studies. In the same year, Fees wrote a strongly-worded defence of Orton against those who had criticised his work.

Selected bibliography Orton, Harold (1930). The Phonology of a South Durham Dialect, London. Orton, Harold (1971). Editorial Problems of an English Dialect Atlas. In: Burghardt, Lorraine H. (ed.): Dialectology: Problems and Perspectives. Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee, 79–115. Orton, Harold and Eugen Dieth (1952), A Questionnaire for a Linguistic Atlas of England. Leeds: Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society. Orton, Harold and Nathalia Wright (1972). Questionnaire for the Investigation of American Regional English. Knoxville: University of Tennessee. Orton, Harold and Nathalia Wright (1975). A Word Geography of England. New York: Seminar Press. Orton, Harold et al. (1962–71). Survey of English Dialects: Basic Materials. Introduction and 4 vols. (each in 3 parts). Leeds: E. J. Arnold & Son.