Percy Smythe, 8th Viscount Strangford

Percy Ellen Algernon Frederick William Sydney Smythe, 8th Viscount Strangford (26 November 1825 9 January 1869) was a British nobleman and man of letters.

Early life He was born in St Petersburg, Russia, the son of the 6th Viscount Strangford, the British Ambassador, Ottoman Turkey, Sweden, and Portugal. During all his earlier years, Percy Smythe was nearly blind, in consequence, it was believed, of his mother having suffered hardship on a journey up the Baltic Sea in wintry weather shortly before his birth.

His education began at Harrow School, whence he went to Merton College, Oxford. He excelled as a linguist, and was nominated by the vice-chancellor of Oxford in 1845 as a student-attache at Constantinople.

Lord Strangford wrote the final chapter, "Chaos", in his wife's book on the Eastern Shores of the Adriatic. It gained him a reputation with students of foreign politics.

On his death in 1869 his titles became extinct. A Selection from the Writings of Viscount Strangford on Political, Geographical and Social Subjects was edited by his widow and published in 1869. His Original Letters and Papers upon Philology and Kindred Subjects were also edited by Lady Strangford (1878).

There is a memorial tablet dedicated to him in Crimea Memorial Church erected by his wife which states that he was "...never relaxing in his attachment to the Turkish Empire or in labouring for her best interests. Endowed with a mind of singular clearness, and an extraordinary memory cultivated by thought and study, he lived to occupy a prominent place as a sound political writer in his own country, and to be one of the first philologists of his time.."