Henry Ford

Henry Ford (c.1753 – 26 July 1813) was an academic at the University of Oxford, who held the positions of Lord Almoner's Professor of Arabic (1780–1813) and Principal of Magdalen Hall, Oxford (1788–1813).

Life and career Henry Ford, from Cranbrook in Kent, joined the University of Oxford on 9 July 1776, at the age of 23, matriculating as a member of Pembroke College. He later became a member of Christ Church and obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1780. He was appointed Lord Almoner's Professor of Arabic straight after obtaining his degree. |group="nb" and so "nepotism and politics triumphed".

Ford obtained his Master of Arts degree in 1783.

In addition to his Oxford positions, he was also an ordained priest in the Church of England. He was a residentiary canon of Hereford Cathedral, rector of Cradley and vicar of Woolhope and Fownhope in Herefordshire. After Butler's death in 1802, Ford (who was the bishop's executor) arranged for a memorial tablet to be placed in the cathedral.

Ford died on 26 July 1813, and was buried in Hereford Cathedral; a memorial to him was placed in the cloisters. He was succeeded in his positions as Lord Almoner's Professor and Principal of Magdalen Hall by John Macbride. Alumni Oxonienses, a 19th-century register of students and academics at the university, records that Ford had two sons, Charles and Frederick, who both studied at Oxford. Mary died on 18 December 1831 "in her 80th year".

An obituary in The Gentleman's Magazine praised Ford's "great and varied acquirements in general science", his "profound knowledge of Oriental literature" and his "unaffected piety, gentleness, and benevolence."