He devised a systemof storage for all the slips in shelves of pigeonholes that lined the walls of theScriptorium.
The scriptorium for the OED relied on shelves of pigeonholes into which the slips could be sorted and stored.
There are photos of Murray with these pigeonholes stuffed behind him. Dig one of these up.
This pigeonhole practice is in marked difference to other projects like the TLL which relied on boxes on shelves.
urray’s house at 78 Banbury Road to receive post (it is still there today).This is now one of the most gentrified areas of Oxford, full of large three-storey, redbrick, Victorian houses, but the houses were brand new whenMurray lived there and considered quite far out of town.
Considered outside of Oxford at the time, Dr. Murray fashioned the Scriptorium at his house at 78 Banbury Road. Murray received so much mail that the Royal Mail installed a red pillar box just to handle the volume.
Murray edited the OED from his grandly named ‘Scriptorium’, which was in fact a large corrugated iron shed, built first in the grounds of Mill Hill School, where he taught, and then in his garden at 78 Banbury Road.