David Daniell (author)

David John Daniell (17 February 1929 – 1 June 2016) was an English literary scholar and editor of specialist books, mainly about William Tyndale and his translations of the Bible. He was formerly Professor of English at University College London and has published a number of studies of the plays of Shakespeare. He also founded the Tyndale Society. He coined the widely repeated phrase explaining the importance of the sixteenth-century English Bible translator to the greatest playwright in the English language: "No Tyndale, No Shakespeare."
Life.
He was the son of the Rev'd Eric H. Daniell (later the minister at Grange Road Baptist Church, Darlington, 1941–1946) and his wife Betty and he was the nephew of mathematician Percy John Daniell. He was educated at the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Darlington. Later, he studied in Oxford (St Catherine's College) and graduated as Bachelor of Arts in 1952; and Master of Arts in 1954, having studied English Language and Literature. In 1954 he gained a B.A. degree in Theology. He read English and later Theology at Oxford. He studied 1954–55 at the University of Tübingen and there he received his postgraduate degree. In 1972 he received his PhD from the University of London, for his Shakespeare studies. In the year 1979, Daniell accompanied the Royal Shakespeare Company on a six-week tour of European cities.
In 1980 and 1982 David Daniell published two volumes of "The Best Short Stories of John Buchan"; in 1989, William Tyndale's New Testament, and in 1992 William Tyndale's Old Testament.
In 1994 he published his biography of William Tyndale and the following year (January 1995) the Tyndale Society was founded at a meeting in the British Library. Daniell was the first chairman and his successor is Mary Clow. Today, the Tyndale Society has about hundred members worldwide.
1998 he published the Arden Third Series edition of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. His book about the history of the English Bible ("The Bible in English: History and Influence") appeared in 2003.
Daniell was appointed a professor of English at University College London, where he became an emeritus professor when he retired in 1994. Before he began to teach at UCL, he spent twelve years as a Sixth Form Master at Apsley Grammar School.
He was an Honorary Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford and of St Catherine's College, Oxford. He was a visiting fellow and an honorary member of the Senior Common Room at Magdalen College, Oxford.
He has had over 50 radio and TV broadcasts about his work.
Family.
He married Dorothy Mary Wells in 1956 and they had two sons; his son Christopher has two sons too. Dorothy died on 25 November 2010.
Death.
The Tyndale Society gives the date of his death as 1 June 2016. A brief notice was also posted by Hertford College, Oxford.
His known theses.
In his writings about William Tyndale he supports some theses. These statements are often quoted by other authors.