A. Diedrich Wackerbarth

[3][4] Francis's father John Henry Wackerbarth took on the refinery; he died in 1818, leaving ten children.

Francis Diedrich was chosen to be educated for the Church of England clergy at Laing's school, Clapham, and then at Queens' College, Cambridge.

[3] He became professor of Anglo-Saxon at Birmingham's Roman Catholic seminary, St Mary's College, Oscott, and in 1849 published a translation of the epic poem Beowulf.

[3] In 1851 he travelled to Denmark to study Germanic languages, visiting Sweden at the same time, and getting to know the director of the Astronomical Observatory in Uppsala, G. Svanberg.

[3] Wackerbarth's translation of Beowulf followed the familiar Victorian era convention of Walter Scott-like romance language with "Liegeman true" and "princely Wight", and using rhyme and modern metre (iambic tetrameters) in place of any attempt to imitate the Old English alliterative metre.

[8] Here, the Danish watchman challenges Beowulf and his men as they arrive at Heorot: ... | þā ðǣr wlonc hæleð ōretmecgas | æfter æþelum frægn: 'Hwanon ferigeað gē | fǣtte scyldas, grǣge syrcan, | ond grīmhelmas, heresceafta hēap ?

Wackerbarth became professor of Anglo-Saxon at St Mary's College, Oscott , seen here in a contemporary 1839 engraving
Beowulf: An Epic Poem , 1849