View source for Whitley Stokes (Celtic scholar)

{{Short description|Irish lawyer and Celtic scholar}}
{{About|the Celtic scholar|his grandfather, the physician|Whitley Stokes (physician)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Use Hiberno-English|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| name = Whitley Stokes
| image = Whitley Stokes-semiprofile-TogailBruidneDaDerga-Emile Bouillon ed 1902-inset.jpg<!--Whitleystokes.jpg-->
| imagesize =
| caption = Whitley Stokes. {{right|{{small|&mdash;'' [[Togail Bruidne Dá Derga|Dá Derga's Hostel]]'' (Émile Bouillon 1902)}}}}
| birth_date = {{birth date|1830|2|28|df=y}}
| birth_place = [[Dublin]], Ireland
| death_date = {{death date and age|1909|4|13|1830|2|28|df=y}}
| death_place = London, England
| occupation = [[Lawyer]], [[Civil Service (United Kingdom)|Civil servant]]
| nationality = Irish
}}
'''Whitley Stokes''', [[Order of the Star of India|CSI]], [[Order of the Indian Empire|CIE]], [[Fellow of the British Academy|FBA]] (28 February 1830 – 13 April 1909) was an Irish lawyer and [[Celtic languages|Celtic]] scholar.
==Background==
He was a son of [[William Stokes (physician)|William Stokes]] (1804–1878), and a grandson of [[Whitley Stokes (physician)|Whitley Stokes the physician]] and anti-[[Malthusianism|Malthusian]] (1763–1845), each of whom was [[Regius Professor of Physic (Dublin)|Regius Professor of Physic]] at [[Trinity College Dublin]]. His sister [[Margaret Stokes]] was a writer and archaeologist.
He was born at 5 [[Merrion Square]], Dublin and educated at [[St Columba's College, Dublin|St Columba's College]] where he was taught Irish by Denis Coffey, author of a ''Primer of the Irish Language''.<ref name=CELT>{{cite web|url=http://www.ucc.ie/celt/stokes.html |title=CELT: Whitley Stokes |publisher=Ucc.ie |access-date=2012-02-15}}</ref> Through his father he came to know the Irish antiquaries [[Samuel Ferguson]], [[Eugene O'Curry]], [[John O'Donovan (scholar)|John O'Donovan]] and [[George Petrie (artist)|George Petrie]].<ref name=CELT /> He entered [[Trinity College Dublin]] in 1846 and graduated with a BA in 1851. His friend and contemporary Rudolf Thomas Siegfried (1830–1863) became assistant librarian in Trinity College in 1855, and the college's first professor of [[Sanskrit]] in 1858. It is likely that Stokes learnt both Sanskrit and [[comparative philology]] from Siegfried, thus acquiring a skill-set rare among Celtic scholars in Ireland at the time.<ref name=Oxford>{{cite ODNB|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36315 |title=Whitley Stokes |year=2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/36315 |access-date=2012-02-15}}</ref>
==Career==
[[File:Brief van Whitley Stokes (1830-1909) aan Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (1857-1936) Or. 8952 D 171.pdf|thumb|page=4|Stokes' handwriting (1890)]]
Stokes qualified for the bar at [[Inner Temple]]. His instructors in the law were [[Arthur Cayley]], [[Hugh Cairns, 1st Earl Cairns|Hugh McCalmont Hughes]], and [[Thomas Chitty]].<ref>{{cite journal|title=Stokes, Whitley|journal=Who's Who|year=1908|page= 1736|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015047640118;view=1up;seq=1764}}</ref> Stokes became an English [[barrister]] on 17 November 1855, practicing in London before going to India in 1862, where he filled several official positions. In 1865 he married Mary Bazely by whom he had four sons and two daughters.<ref name=CELT /> One of his daughters, Maïve, compiled a book of ''Indian Fairy Tales'' in 1879 (she was 12 years old) based on stories told to her by her Indian ''ayahs'' and a man-servant. It also included some notes by Mrs. Mary Stokes.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Review. Indian Fairy Tales by Maive Stokes, Mary Stokes|journal=The Folk-Lore Record|volume=3| issue= 1|year=1880|pages=145–147}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/stream/indianfairytales00stok|title=Indian Fairy Tales, collected and translated by Maive Stokes. With Notes by Mary Stokes, and an Introduction by W. R. S. Ralston|publisher=Ellis and White|year=1880|author=Stokes, Maive}}</ref> Mary died while the family was still living in India. In 1877, Stokes was appointed legal member of the viceroy's council, and he drafted the codes of civil and criminal procedure and did much other valuable work of the same nature. In 1879 he became president of the commission on Indian law. Nine books by Stokes on Celtic studies were published in India. He returned to settle permanently in London in 1881 and married Elizabeth Temple in 1884.<ref name=CELT /> In 1887 he was made a [[Order of the Star of India|CSI]], and two years later a [[Order of the Indian Empire|CIE]] He was an original fellow of the [[British Academy]], an honorary fellow of [[Jesus College, Oxford]] and foreign associate of the [[Institut de France]].<ref name=Oxford />
==Celtic scholarship==
Whitley Stokes is perhaps most famous as a Celtic scholar, and in this field he worked both in India and in England. He studied Irish, [[Breton language|Breton]] and [[Cornish language|Cornish]] texts. His chief interest in Irish was as a source of material for comparative [[philology]]. Despite his learning in [[Old Irish]] and [[Middle Irish]], he never acquired Irish pronunciation and never mastered [[Modern Irish]].<ref name=Oxford /> In the hundred years since his death he has continued to be a central figure in Celtic scholarship.<ref name=Oxford /> Many of his editions have not been superseded in that time and his total output in Celtic studies comes to over 15,000 pages.<ref name=Oxford /> He was a correspondent and close friend of [[Kuno Meyer]] from 1881 onwards. With Meyer he established the journal ''Archiv für celtische Lexicographie'' and was the co-editor, with [[Ernst Windisch]], of the ''Irische Texte'' series.<ref name=Oxford /> In 1876 Stokes's translation of [[Vita tripartita Sancti Patricii]], along with a written introduction, was published.<ref>{{cite web |title=On the Life of St. Patrick |url=https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T201009.html |publisher=celt.ucc.ie}}</ref>
In 1862 he was awarded the [[Cunningham Medal|Cunningham Gold Medal]] by the Royal Irish Academy.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ria.ie/getmedia/3b7984d2-3580-4438-9d55-08ae8ded4e4e/Cunningham-Medal-2008---Seamus-Heaney.pdf.aspx|title=Cunningham Medal|publisher=RIA|access-date=11 November 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140427021827/http://www.ria.ie/getmedia/3b7984d2-3580-4438-9d55-08ae8ded4e4e/Cunningham-Medal-2008---Seamus-Heaney.pdf.aspx|archive-date=27 April 2014}}</ref>
==Death and reputation==
[[File:Whitleystokes.jpg|right|thumb|Stokes in old age]]
Stokes died at his London home, 15 Grenville Place, Kensington, in 1909 and is buried in Paddington Old Cemetery, Willesden Lane, where his grave is marked by a Celtic cross. Another Celtic cross was erected as a memorial to him at St Fintan's, Sutton, Dublin.  The [[Gaelic League]] paper ''[[An Claidheamh Soluis]]'' called Stokes "the greatest of the Celtologists" and expressed pride that an Irishman should have excelled in a field which was at that time dominated by continental scholars.<ref name=Oxford /> In 1929 the Canadian scholar James F. Kenney described Stokes as "the greatest scholar in philology that Ireland has produced, and the only one that may be ranked with the most famous of continental savants".<ref name=Oxford />
A conference entitled "Ireland, India, London: The Tripartite Life of Whitley Stokes" took place at the [[University of Cambridge]] from 18 to 19 September 2009.<ref name="admin.cam.ac.uk">{{cite web|url=http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2009091702 |title=Home - News - University of Cambridge |publisher=Admin.cam.ac.uk |access-date=2012-02-15}}</ref> The event was organised to mark the centenary of Stokes's death.<ref name="admin.cam.ac.uk"/> A volume of essays based on the papers delivered at this conference, ''The Tripartite Life of Whitley Stokes (1830–1909)'', was published by [[Four Courts Press]] in autumn 2011.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fourcourtspress.ie/product.php?intProductID=1005 |title=Four Courts Press: The tripartite life of Whitley Stokes (1830–1909) by Elizabeth Boyle & Paul Russell, editors |publisher=Fourcourtspress.ie |access-date=2012-02-15}}</ref>
In 2010 [[Dáibhí Ó Cróinín]] published ''Whitley Stokes (1830–1909): The Lost Celtic Notebooks Rediscovered'', a volume based on the scholarship in Stokes's 150 notebooks which had been resting unnoticed at the University Library, [[Leipzig]] since 1919.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.fourcourtspress.ie/product.php?intProductID=879 |title=Four Courts Press: Whitley Stokes (1830–1909) by Dáibhí Ó Cróinín |publisher=Fourcourtspress.ie |access-date=2012-02-15 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120214131411/http://www.fourcourtspress.ie/product.php?intProductID=879 |archive-date=2012-02-14 }}</ref>
==Works==
*''[[Pascon agan Arluth|The Passion: Middle Cornish Poem]]'' (1860–1861)
*''Three Irish Glossaries'' (1862)
*[https://archive.org/details/gwreansbyscreati00stokuoft Gwreans an Bys: the Creation of the World] Translation of [[William Jordan (writer)|William Jordan]]'s 1611 Cornish play (1864)
*''Beunans Meriasek The Life of Saint Meriasek Bishop and Confessor'' (1872) - Editor[Trubner & Co London]
*''Three Middle-Irish Homilies'' (1877)
*''Old Irish Glosses at Merzburg and Carlsruhe'' (1887)
*''Irische Texte'' published at Leipzig (1880–1900), co-editor with [[Ernst Windisch]]
*''The Anglo-Indian Codes'' (1887).
*''Lives of Saints from the Book of Lismore'' (1890) translator
*''Urkeltischer Sprachschatz'' (1894) with [[Adalbert Bezzenberger]]
*''Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus'' (1901–03) with [[John Strachan (linguist)|John Strachan]]
== Collections ==
In 1910 Stokes' daughters presented [[University College London]] with their father's library.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=UCL Special Collections |date=2018-08-23 |title=Whitley Stokes Library |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/special-collections/a-z/stokes |access-date=2023-12-15 |website=UCL Special Collections |language=en}}</ref> The collection spans c.2000 books, many of which contain autograph letters between Stokes and [[Kuno Meyer]], and from other philologists.<ref name=":0" /> Stokes' archive also resides at University College London; the 4 box collection comprises his working notes on philology.<ref>{{Cite web |last=UCL Special Collections |title=Stokes Papers |url=https://archives.ucl.ac.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=MS+ADD+300 |access-date=2023-12-15 |website=UCL Archives Catalogue}}</ref>
==See also==
* [[The Meeting on the Turret Stairs]]
==References==
{{Reflist}}
==Sources==
*{{EB1911|wstitle=Stokes, Whitley|volume=25|page=953}}
==External links==
{{wikisource author}}
* [http://www.ucc.ie/celt/stokebib.html Stokes bibliography] at [[University College Cork]]'s CELT project
* [http://www.ucc.ie/celt/stokes.html Irish Texts edited, some translated, by Whitley Stokes, CELT project, retrieved 23 May 2007]
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Whitley Stokes}}
* {{Librivox author |id=2125}}
* [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/special-collections/a-z/stokes Whitley Stokes Library] at [[University College London]]
* [https://archives.ucl.ac.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=MS+ADD+300 Stokes Papers] at [[University College London]]
{{FBA 1902}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stokes, Whitley}}
[[Category:1830 births]]
[[Category:1909 deaths]]
[[Category:Celtic studies scholars]]
[[Category:Alumni of Trinity College Dublin]]
[[Category:Fellows of the British Academy]]
[[Category:Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire]]
[[Category:Companions of the Order of the Star of India]]
[[Category:Administrators in British India]]
[[Category:Irish Protestants]]
[[Category:People from Howth]]
[[Category:Members of the Council of the Governor General of India]]