William Stukeley

William Stukeley FRS, FRCP, FSA ( * 1687, † 1765 ), was an English bookseller from Yorkshire.

Life

He was born in Stukeley Hall in Holbeach in Lincolnshire, the son of a lawyer. He received his MB of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and then studied medicine at St Thomas' Hospital in London. In 1710 he established a practice in Boston, Lincolnshire, but already moved in 1717 to London. In 1717 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, in 1718 as a member of the Society of Antiquaries of London, whose secretary he was for nine years. In 1719 he received the MD and 1720 he was a member of the Royal College of Physicians.

Stukeley was a friend of Isaac Newton and published in 1752 a biography of him.

Methods

Stukeley conducted excavations, he seems to have thereby created the first profile and documented. He described and documented the Stonehenge cursus and interpreted it as a Roman chariot race track, While his drawings show a straight end, but he describes it as convex, " like the end of a Roman circus. '" The long bed at the end of the cursus, he interpreted as a judge grandstand. Stonehenge itself overlooked the middle of the race track and offered a good vantage point to "[ ... ] the vast plain and the mass of the race car, horse riders and pedestrians [ ... ] ". Even Dyke Hills ( Dorchester ) and Raw Dykes ( Leics. ) he looked at as racecourses, they are now interpreted as the ramparts of an oppidum or Roman aqueduct.

Works

• Stonehenge, a temple restor'd to the British Druids, 1740 ( Stukeley 's 'Stonehenge': manuscript of unpublished, by Aubrey Burl 1721-1724/edited and Neil Mortimer, New Haven, London: Yale University Press 2005).
• Palæographia sacra. Or discourses on sacred subjects, 1736
• Curiosum itinerary: or, An account of the antiquities, and remarkable curiosities in nature or art, Observed in travels through Great Britain. 2nd edition, London, Baker & Leigh, 1776 new publication Farnborough. Gregg 1969 ( limited preview on Google Book Search )
• The Philosophy of Earthquakes, Natural and Religious. Or an Inquiry into Their Cause, and Their Purpose, Londion 1750, Printed for C. Corbet over -against St. Dunstan's Church, Fleet Street ( limited preview on Google Book Search )