TRITTON ASIAN MANUSCRIPTS

12th - 20th centuries

Admin history: Professor A.S. Tritton, Professor Emeritus at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, compiled this catalogue of the collection in 1951. Arthur Stanley Tritton was born on 25 February 1881, the son of a pastor of the Congregational Church at Great Yarmouth. He graduated with honours in Theology from Oxford in 1906 and worked in the Congregational ministry for a year, returning to Oxford in 1907 as Kennicott Junior Hebrew scholar. From 1911 to 1916 he was assistant to the Professor of Hebrew at Edinburgh. He spent several months as a missionary in Aden before gaining an M.A. in Arabic and a D.Litt in 1918. Tritton was Professor of Arabic at Aligarth for 10 years before taking the post of lecturer of Arabic at SOAS in 1931, becoming Professor of Arabic and head of the department in 1938. Retiring in 1946 he continued to lecture part-time and was made Professor Emeritus in 1948. Tritton published six books, on subjects such Arabic language, Middle Eastern history and Islam. He also produced numerous articles for the Bulletin of The School of Oriental and African Studies; for the Journal of The Royal Asiatic Society, and a range of Encyclopaedias. He died on 8 November 1973.‎