Stukeley, WILLIAM

Stukeley, WILLIAM, antiquary, was born at Holbeach, Lincolnshire, 7th November 1687, and from the grammar-school there passed in 1703 to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Having taken his M.B. (1709) and studied at St Thomas' Hospital, he practised successively at Boston, London, and Grantham, meanwhile proceeding M.D., and being admitted an F.R.C.P. But in 1729 he took orders, and, after holding two Lincolnshire livings, in 1747 was presented to the rectory of St George the Martyr in Queen Square, London, where he died, 3d March 1765. His twenty works, published between 1720 and 1726, and dealing with Stonehenge, Avebury, and antiquities generally, enshrine a good deal that is curious, and have preserved much that might else have perished, but they are marred by a credulity and fancifulness which won for him the title of the 'Arch-Druid.' See his Family Memoirs, edited for the Surtees Society (3 vols. 1884-87).