Oxford’s Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics (LPP) is proud to introduce the Anna Morpurgo Davies Room, a large space in the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities.

The Anna Morpurgo Davies Room is the faculty’s main space for lectures, meetings, and talks. It is also the first time that LPP has had a space of its own for holding events. 

It is fitting that the faculty has named the room after Anna Morpurgo Davies (1937 - 2014), since LPP might not exist without her efforts. Anna was one of the leaders in developing linguistics in Oxford over a span of 50 years. She was also a benefactor to the faculty. A graduate scholarship that she endowed bears her name.

Anna first came to Oxford in 1962, as a young Italian classical scholar with no stable position, supporting herself with miscellaneous teaching assignments. She was appointed to a university lectureship in classical philology in 1964, then to a fellowship at St Hilda’s College. In 1971 she was appointed as the Chair in Comparative Philology, which took her to Somerville College – only 5 colleges had women fellows at that time – which remained her base until her retirement in 2004. She remained active and engaged in academic life for the rest of her life.. 

Anna’s primary expertise was in Indo-European grammar. She created the first lexicon of Mycenean, the language of Linear B. She was one of the decipherers of Luwian hieroglyphs. She was also known for her work on the history of linguistic thought, especially in the 19th century.

Under Anna’s leadership, Oxford reinforced its position as a centre of study in comparative philology. The weekly seminar that she founded in 1974 recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. 

But from early in her career, Anna had a broader vision for linguistic study in Oxford. A fellowship in the US in 1961-62 at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington DC allowed her to taste the newly emerging world of theoretical linguistics in visits to Philadelphia and Cambridge, Mass. This shaped her view of fruitful cooperation between philology and linguistics.

In Oxford, Anna led efforts to introduce linguistics into Oxford, in a period when Oxford was behind its UK peers in introducing the new field. She was a driving force behind the creation of Oxford’s Chair in General Linguistics in the mid-1970s, and over the subsequent 30 years she continued as the main driving force behind the development of linguistics in Oxford.

Anna spearheaded the establishment of the Committee in Philology and General Linguistics, a non-departmental organisation that offered graduate degrees and that was the precursor to LPP, which launched as an independent faculty in 2008. 

Anna was also the driving force behind the creation of the first dedicated space for Oxford’s linguists. After the Clarendon Institute on Walton St was decommissioned after nearly a century as the social club for Oxford University Press employees, Anna worked to secure a common room where graduate students could meet for coffee and conversation. This grew into a set of rooms that became the home of Oxford Linguistics for over 30 years, before and after the establishment of LPP as an independent faculty.

However, the Clarendon Institute was only ever able to house a fraction of LPP’s activities, especially as the faculty steadily grew. The faculty never had larger meeting spaces of its own. It is only after the move to the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities in 2025 that LPP has its own meeting rooms for the first time.

So, LPP could and should have named a room after Anna Morpurgo Davies many years ago. Nobody else played such an important role in the developments that led to today’s community of around 350 academics, staff and students. But it is only now that LPP has a room that it can name in honour of Anna’s contributions.

A small display in the room briefly summarises her contributions to the field and to language scholarship in Oxford.

For more:

Anna Morpurgo Davies obituary, The Guardian, 9 October 2014. By Andreas Willi. 

Anna Morpurgo Davies, 1937-2014. Council of University Classical Departments Bulletin 2014. By Philomen Probert. More colourful overview, with several stories.

Holocaust memories from Italy. An address given in Somerville College Chapel by Anna Morpurgo Davies on 23 January 2005, for Holocaust Memorial Day. 

Anna Morpurgo Davies. In Linguistics in Britain: Personal Histories (2002). Published by the Philological Society. A personal narrative, especially informative about the context for philology and linguistics in Oxford in the 1960s and 1970s. 

Anna Morpurgo Davies, 10 years on. An online collection of memories of Anna, published by the Philological Society in 2024.