W. S. Ramson, Lexicographer, taught English at the Australian National University (ANU) from 1961. He published Australian English: An Historical Study of the Vocabulary 1788-1898 in 1966. From 1975 to 1981 he was Dean of the Faculty of Arts at ANU.
Ramson was the founding editor of the Macquarie Dictionary (1981) and from the late 1970s he consulted on Australian English with the Oxford English Dictionary project.
In 1978 research began on the Australian National Dictionary project with Ramson as the editor. The Australian National Dictionary was published in 1988. The Australian National Dictionary Centre, housing the project and its archive, was established at the ANU also in 1988 with Ramson as Founding Director, a post he held until 1994.
Source: 'In Memory of Dr Bill Ramson', Australian National University website, www.anu.edu.au (sighted 17/10/2011)
