Rogers, Harold Leslie

Born: 4 March 1925, Wallasey, Cheshire, England

Died: 8 April 1990, Sydney

Family: Father, Harold Rogers (dec. 1938); Mother, ?

Married: Lesley Hale, 1 July 1953 (1 son, 2 daughters)

Education:
Wallasey Grammar School (scholarship student)
1941 School Certificate
Junior Engineer, Student of the Institute of Civil Engineers (correspondence course)
1948 to 1951 St Catherines, Oxford University
1950 Sports Editor, Trinity Term, and Editor, Michaelmas Term, The Isis
1952 to 1953 British Council Scholarship for Postgraduate work in Icelandic, University of Iceland, Reykjavik

Career:
1941 Office boy, Shell Oil Company
Chainman, A. Monk & Company
1942 Registered for National Service
4 March 1943 joined the Army
1944 Commissioned as a Second Lieutenant with the Royal Engineers
1944 to 1945 Indian Army, Royal Bombay Sappers and Miners (RBSM), Kirkee, near Poonah (became fluent in Urdu and learnt some Punjabi)
1945 RBSM unit it Italy
VE Day in hospital in Caserta
1946 Joined the Fourth Indian Division in Greece, promoted to Divisional Headquarters in Salonika as an Intelligence Officer
1946 returned to India: took part in the quelling of the Indian Navy Mutiny, played Rugby for the RBSM, appointed Adjutant at Regimental Headquarters
1947 Discharged from Army and went up to Oxford University
1950 Visited Iceland for the first time and learned some Icelandic
1951 Staff Reporter, Manchester Daily Express
1953 Assistant Lecturer in English, Exeter
1954 to 1958 Lecturer in Norse Studies, University of Glasgow
1958 Senior Lecturer, Early English Language and Literature, University of Sydney
1964 Associate Professor, Early English Language and Literature, University of Sydney
4 July 1966 to 31 December 1987 McCaughey Professor of Early English Language and Literature, University of Sydney
1966 to 1987 Professorial Board (later Academic Board), University of Sydney
1968 to 1971 Dean of the Faculty of Arts, University of Sydney
1968 to 1969 Fellow of Senate, University of Sydney
1974 to 1975 Fellow of Senate, University of Sydney
Chairman of the Library Committee
Director of the University Co-operative Bookshop
Chairman of the Board of Studies in Music
Member of the Syllabus Committee and of the Examination Committee for Higher School Certificate English
Proposed the numbering of staff positions to supersede the old practice of naming a position after the occupant
31 December 1987 Resigned and made Emeritus Professor

Publications:
Areas: Old Icelandic; Old English (specifically on Beowulf and the Battle poems); Middle English (specifically on Chaucer); Shakespeare (notably on Macbeth); history of the language, including problems of current usage and Australian English. Inlcuding:
"Seven Pillars of Wisdom: T.E. Lawrence: A Prophet in his Own Country", The Isis, 1140, 22 November 1950, pp.26-27
"Beowulfs Three Great Fights", Review of English Studies, 6, 1955, pp.339-55; reprinted in An Anthology of Beowulf Criticism, edited by Lewis E. Nicholson, Notre Dame, 1963, pp.233-56
"An Icelandic life of St. Edward the Confessor", Saga-Book of the Viking Society, 14, 1956-57, pp.249-72
"An Elegy on Henry VII", Review of English Studies, 8, 1957, pp.267-70 (with G.V. Scammell)
"An Icelandic/Norwegian Name for Westminster", Medium vum, 27, 1958 pp.17-20
"The Prophetic Label in Cymbeline", Review of English Studies, 11, 1960, pp.296-99
Double Profit in Macbeth, Melbourne, London & New York, 1964
"An English Tailor and Father Garnets Straw", Review of English Studies, 16, 1965, pp.44 -49
"The Crypto-Psychological Character of the Oral Formula", English Studies, 47, 1966, pp.89-102
"The Oral Composition of Epic: Some Current Ideas Examined", Australian Universities Language and Literature Association, Proceedings and Papers of the Tenth Congress, Auckland, 2-9 February 1966, pp.193-201
"On the Notion of Continuity in English Language and Literature", Arts, The jOurnal of the Sydney University Arts Association, 5, 1968, (inaugural lecture delivered on 19 July 1967)
"Rhymes in the Epilogue to Elene: A Reconsideration", Leeds Studies in English, 5, 1971, pp.47-52
Festschrift for Ralph Farrell, edited by Anthony Stephens, H.L. Rogers, And Brian Coghlan, and Peter Lang, Bern, Frankfurt and Las Vegas, 1977
"The Beginning (and Ending) of Chaucers Troilus and Criseyde", in Festschrift for Ralph Farrell, edited by Anthony Stephens, H.L. Rogers, And Brian Coghlan, and Peter Lang, Bern, Frankfurt and Las Vegas, 1977
"The Oldest West-Saxon Text?", Review of English Studies, 32, 1981, pp.257-66
"The Tales of the Merchant and the Franklin: Text and Interpretation", Studies in Chaucer, edited by G.A. Wilkes and A.P. Riemer, Sydney Studies in English, Sydney, 1981 pp.3-27
"Anglo-Saxons and Icelanders at Byzantium with special reference to the Icelandic Saga of St Edward the Confessor", Byzantine Papers: Proceedings of the First Byzantine Studies Conference Canberra, 17-19 May 1978, edited by Elizabeth and Michael Jeffreys and Ann Moffatt, Canberra, 1981, pp.82-89
"Beowulf, line 804", Notes and Queries, n.s. 31, 1984, pp.289-92
"The Battle of Maldon: David Casleys Transcript", Notes and Queries, n.s. 32, 1985, pp.147-55
"A Note on DARG", in The Cultivated Australian: Festschrift in Honour of Arthur Delbridge, edited by J.E. Clark, Beitrge zur Phoentik und Linguistik, Hamburg, 1985, pp.391-94

See also: Words and Wordsmiths: a volume for H.L. Rogers, edited by Geraldine Barnes, John Gunn, Sonia Jensen, and Lee Jobling, Department of English, University of Sydney, 1989
Leeds Studies in English, New Series XX, 1989, "Studies in Honour of H.L. Rogers", edited by Geraldine Barnes, Sonia Jensen, Lee Jobling, and David Lawton