Richard Porson was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 classical scholar

Classics

Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...

. He was the discoverer of Porson's Law

Porson's Law

Porson's Law is a metrical law concerning a "bridge" in Greek iambic trimeters, the most common dialogue-meter in Greek tragedy and comedy. In its most general form it states that, in anceps-cretic or cretic-anceps meters, such as the iambic trimeter, no word-break may follow a long anceps, except...

; and the Greek typeface Porson

Porson (typeface)

Porson is a typeface in the Greek alphabet based on the handwriting of the English classicist Richard Porson, who, as his biographer writes, "excelled ... in writing with neatness and beauty" and "wrote notes on the margins of books with such studied accuracy that they rivalled print".The face was...

was based on his handwriting.
He was born at East Ruston

East Ruston

East Ruston is a village and a civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. The village is North East of Norwich, South East of Cromer and north-east of London. The village lies East of the town of North Walsham.The nearest railway station is at North Walsham for the Bittern Line which runs...

, near North Walsham

North Walsham

North Walsham is a market town and civil parish in Norfolk, England in the North Norfolk district.-Demographics:The civil parish has an area of and in the 2001 census had a population of 11,998. For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the district of North...

, in Norfolk

Norfolk

Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...

, the eldest son of Huggin Person, parish clerk. His mother was the daughter of a shoemaker from the neighbouring village of Bacton

Bacton, Norfolk

Bacton is a village and civil parish in Norfolk, England. It is on the Norfolk coast, some 20 km south-east of Cromer, 40 km north-west of Great Yarmouth and 30 km north of Norwich. Besides the village of Bacton, the parish includes the nearby settlements of Bacton Green, Broomholm,...

. He was sent first to the village school at Bacton, kept by John Woodrow, and afterwards to that of Happisburgh

Happisburgh

Happisburgh is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is situated off the B1159 coast road from Ingham to Bacton.The civil parish has an area of , although this is declining due to cliff erosion. In the 2001 census, before the creation of Walcott parish, it had a...

 kept by Mr Summers, where his extraordinary powers of memory and aptitude for arithmetic were soon discovered.