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Whitley Stokes

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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WHITLEY STOKES (1830-1909), British lawyer and Celtic scholar, was a son of William Stokes (1804-1878), and a grandson of Whitley Stokes (1763-1845), each of whom was regius professor of physic in the university of Dublin. In his day, William Stokes, who was the author of several books on medical subjects, was one of the foremost physicians in Europe. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, young Stokes became an English barrister in 1855, and in 1862 he went to India, where he filled several official posit,ions. In 1877 he 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 was president of the commission on Indian law. He returned to England in 1882. In 1887 he was made a C.S.I., and two years later a C.I.E.; he obtained honorary degrees from many universities, and was a fellow of the British Academy. He died in London on the 13th of April 1909. 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 and Cornish texts, and among his numerous works may be mentioned editions of Three Irish Glossaries (1862); Three Middle-Irish Homilies (1877); and Old Irish Glosses at Wiirzburg and Carlsruhe (1887). He was one of the editors of the Irische Texte published at Leipzig (1880-1900); and he edited and translated Lives of Saints from the Book of Lismore (1890). With Professor A. Bezzenberger he wrote Urkeltischer Sprachschatz (1894). His principal legal work was The Anglo-Indian Codes (1887).