Percy Smythe, 8th Viscount Strangford

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Merton College
Spouse
Lionel Percy Smythe (half-brother)
Sir John Burke
(uncle)

Percy Ellen Algernon Frederick William Sydney Smythe, 8th Viscount Strangford (26 November 1825[1] – 9 January 1869) was a British nobleman and man of letters.[2]

Early life

He was born in

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.[3]

His education began at

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.[3]

Career

While at Constantinople, where he served under Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, Smythe gained a mastery not only of Turkish and its dialects, but of the forms of modern Greek. He already had a good knowledge both of Persian and Arabic before going east. It was the study of Ottoman history that led him to the languages[specify] of the

Balkan peninsula.[3]

On succeeding his

Pall Mall Gazette. A rather severe review in the first of these, of the Egyptian Sepulchres and Syrian Shrines of Emily Anne Beaufort (1826–1887), led to the marriage of the reviewer and the author.[3][4]

Lord Strangford wrote the final chapter, "Chaos", in his wife's book on the Eastern Shores of the Adriatic.[5] It gained him a reputation with students of foreign politics.[3]

Percy Smythe was president of the

Royal Asiatic Society in 1861–64 and 1867–69.[citation needed
]

Personal life

In 1862, Smythe was married to the illustrator and writer,

Sir Francis Beaufort.[6]

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.[7] His Original Letters and Papers upon Philology and Kindred Subjects were also edited by Lady Strangford (1878).[8][3]

Honours

The future

Turkish atrocities in Rumelia, including one dedicated to his wife, Lady Strangford.[citation needed
]

The Australian botanist, Ferdinand von Mueller named the species of flowering plant Goodenia strangfordii in his honour.[9][10]

References

  1. JSTOR 1799007
    – via Internet Archive
  2. ^ See Fonblanque, E.B. (1877). Lives of the Lords Strangford, with their Ancestors and Contemporaries through Ten Generations (1 ed.). London: Cassell, Petter & Galpin. pp. 247–294. Retrieved 13 December 2014 – via Internet Archive.
  3. ^ a b c d e f  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Strangford, Viscount s.v. Percy Ellen Frederick William Sydney Smythe". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 983.
  4. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/25963. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  5. ^ See Viscountess Strangford (1864). Eastern Shores of the Adriatic (1 ed.). London: Robert Bentley. Retrieved 10 December 2014. via Internet Archive
  6. ISBN 9781611462166
    . Retrieved 31 July 2018.
  7. ^ See Viscountess Strangford, ed. (1869). A Selection from the Writings of Viscount Strangford on Political, Geographical and Social Subjects. Vol. I (1 ed.). London: Richard Bentley. Retrieved 9 April 2016. via Internet Archive. Viscountess Strangford, ed. (1869). A Selection from the Writings of Viscount Strangford on Political, Geographical and Social Subjects. Vol. II (1 ed.). London: Richard Bentley. Retrieved 10 December 2014.
  8. ^ See Viscountess Strangford, ed. (1878). Original Letters and Papers of the late Viscount Strangford upon Philology and Kindred Subjects (1 ed.). London: Trübner. Retrieved 10 December 2014. via Internet Archive
  9. ^ von Mueller, Ferdinand (1867). Fragmenta phytographiae Australiae. Vol. 6. Melbourne: Victorian Government Printer. p. 11. Retrieved 3 May 2021.
  10. ISBN 9780958034180
    .

External links
Peerage of Ireland
Preceded by Viscount Strangford
1857–1869 		Extinct
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