Harry Scargill
Head of the Department of Linguistics, University
of Victoria, Canada; Founder and President of the
Canadian Linguistic Association, Professor Harry
Scargill, taught English at Bradford Technical
College from 1944 to 1946.
(Matthew) Harry Scargill, a Barnsley lad who
enjoyed a distinguished academic career in
Canada and became an international authority
on Linguistics, began his professional career at
Bradford Technical College.
He came to College to teach English in 1944,
having attained a BA (Hons) English degree and
PhD at the University of Leeds. After 2 years
in Bradford, he moved to London as Assistant
Director of Examinations for the Civil Service
Commission, before emigrating to Canada in
1948 to become Assistant Professor of English
at the University of Alberta. Ten years later he
became a Professor, and in 1959 he joined the
University of Calgary as Head of the English
Department, later becoming Dean of Arts &
Sciences. In 1954 he set up the Canadian
Linguistic Association, initially acting as
Secretary and Editor of the Canadian Journal of
Linguistics.
In 1964 Harry set up Canada’s first English-speaking
Department of Linguistics at the
University of Victoria and later established the
faculty of Graduate Studies, before becoming
Head of the Department of Linguistics in 1970.
Harry’s contribution to distinguished scholarship
earned him numerous accolades: Canada’s
Centennial Medal for his work as the author of
the Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical
Principles in 1967; he became a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Canada in 1970; received the
Queen’s Silver Jubilee Medal in 1978; and was
awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws by the
University of Victoria in 1988.
His other publications included The Earliest
Examples of the West Riding Dialect (1939); Folktales from Iceland (1942); The
Development of the Earliest Sounds of Indo-
European (1952) and English Handbook (1954). Harry also co-authored Three Icelandic
Sagas (1950) and Looking at Language
(1966).
Harry retired in 1981 but continued working on
the revised Gage Canadian Dictionary although
failing health forced him to give up before the
project’s completion.
Harry Scargill died in
August 1997.