Chronological outline
Westcott born
Brooke Foss Westcott is born in Birmingham on 12 January 1825, the opening point of the memoir narrative.
Hort born
Fenton John Anthony Hort is born in Dublin on 23 April 1828, beginning the parallel story that will later join Westcott’s.
School and university formation
Westcott passes through King Edward’s School and Trinity, Cambridge; Hort through Rugby and Trinity, Cambridge.
Textual collaboration begins
The memoir evidence places the systematic beginning of the Westcott-Hort New Testament work in the spring of 1853.
Cambridge clubs and private letters
The Apostles, Eranus, Hermes, and Ghostly Guild references belong to the period that later critics revisit most intensely.
Church controversy and parish work
Both men continue church and scholarly work while questions of orthodoxy, ritual, and education surround the English Church.
Revision work intensifies
The New Testament Revision Company begins work, bringing Westcott and Hort’s textual labour into a public national setting.
The New Testament in the Original Greek
The Greek text appears in print and becomes a defining event in later textual criticism and Bible translation debate.
Hort dies
Hort dies before the full long-term reception of the 1881 text has played out.
Westcott dies
Westcott dies after service as Bishop of Durham, leaving behind both institutional honour and unresolved controversy.
Memoir volumes shape memory
The sons’ memoirs preserve much of the evidence modern readers continue to debate, including both reverent memorial language and controversial quotations.
Why the sequence matters
The order of events matters because debate often compresses everything into one moment: 1881. In reality, the public Greek text was the end point of nearly three decades of prior habits, friendships, theories, clubs, manuscript preferences, and church controversies. The timeline shows that Westcott and Hort did not become controversial only when the text appeared in print; some of the evidence later critics use belongs much earlier.