Whitley Stokes

Whitley Stokes, CSI, CIE, FBA (28 February 1830 – 13 April 1909) was an Irish lawyer and Celtic scholar.

Background He was a son of William Stokes (1804–1878), and a grandson of Whitley Stokes the physician and anti-Malthusian (1763–1845), each of whom was 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 where he was taught Irish by Denis Coffey, author of a Primer of the Irish Language. Through his father he came to know the Irish antiquaries Samuel Ferguson, Eugene O'Curry, John O'Donovan and George Petrie.

Career

Stokes qualified for the bar at Inner Temple. His instructors in the law were Arthur Cayley, Hugh McCalmont Hughes, and Thomas Chitty. 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. 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.

In 1862 he was awarded the Cunningham Gold Medal by the Royal Irish Academy.

Death and reputation

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. The event was organised to mark the centenary of Stokes's death.

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.

Works The Passion: Middle Cornish Poem (1860–1861) Three Irish Glossaries (1862) Gwreans an Bys: the Creation of the World Translation of 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

Collections In 1910 Stokes' daughters presented University College London with their father's library. The collection spans c.2000 books, many of which contain autograph letters between Stokes and Kuno Meyer, and from other philologists.