George Sampson (scholar)

George Sampson was born in Greenwich^[2] to parents from Jersey.^[3] Although he left school comparatively early, he was trained as a teacher at Southwark and Winchester and was a head master for many years.^[2] In 1907 he married Grace Alldis.^[2] From 1917 to 1919 he served on the executive committee of the English Association, and from 1920 to 1923, as its Honorary General Secretary.^[1] In 1921, he received an honorary M.A. from the University of Cambridge. In 1925, he was appointed inspector of schools under the London County Council.^[2]

After his retirement he lived at Hove until his death from heart failure.^[2]

Sampson's best-known works include: English for the English (1921), The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature (1941, a single-volume abridgement of The Cambridge History of English Literature), and Seven Essays (1947).^[2] He also produced editions of George Berkeley, Edmund Burke, John Henry Cardinal Newman, Thomas More, George Herbert, John Keats, Walter Bagehot, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Hazlitt.^[2]