M. F. M. Meiklejohn
Professor of Italian at the University of Glasgow, amateur ornithologist (1913-1974)
Matthew Fontaine Maury Meiklejohn (24 June 1913 – 14 May 1974) was an English professor of languages who held the Stevenson Chair for Italian studies at the University of Glasgow for twenty-five years. He was also a noted amateur ornithologist. It has been claimed that he was among the first "twitchers" who invented the idea of birding "life list".
Meiklejohn was born in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, where he took an early interest in natural history and went to Gresham's School, Holt, and then to Oriel College at Oxford with a scholarship and graduated with first class honours in French and Italian in 1934. He then moved to Merton College (1936–1938) with a Harmsworth Scholarship. He was influenced by many ornithologists including David Lack, Hugh Elliot, James Fisher, and Wilfred Backhouse Alexander. He then went to teach at Cape Town University and joined the South African army and worked to gather intelligence in Kenya, Egypt and Italy. He worked at the British Council in Teheran after the war.
He taught Italian at Leeds before being the Stevenson Chair of Italian at Glasgow University. He died after a brief illness and on his request, his ashes were scattered on the Isle of May, his favourite haunt for bird study.
The public source identifies “M. F. M. Meiklejohn” as professor of Italian at the University of Glasgow, amateur ornithologist (1913-1974). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Meiklejohn, Professor and Italian.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 5, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q41850229. VIAF identifies the subject as 161403432. The Library of Congress control number is nb2011002135. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1913, 1974, 1934 and 1936.
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This entry incorporates text from “M. F. M. Meiklejohn” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.