He was born in
Peeblesshire on 17 July 1853 and educated at
St Andrews and
Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated in natural science.
Work Rutherford devoted special attention to
Attic Greek idioms and the language of
Aristophanes. His most important work,
New Phrynichus (1881), dealing with the
Atticisms of
Phrynichus Arabius, was supplemented by his
Babrius (1883), a specimen of the later
Greek language, which was the chief subject of
Christian August Lobeck's earlier commentary (1820) on Phrynichus. His edition (1896–1905) of the
Aristophanic scholia from the Ravenna manuscript was less successful. Mention may also be made of his
Elementary Greek Accidence and
Lex Rex, a list of cognate words in Greek, Latin and English. In the year 1900, Rutherford produced an English translation of some parts of the Bible, called "
Five Pauline Epistles – A New Translation." This work was a translation of the books of
Romans, first and second
Thessalonians, and first and second
Corinthians, with a brief analysis. William G. Rutherford died on 19 July 1907, two days after his 54th birthday. == Family ==