William Stukeley

English archaeologist and antiquarian

• Born: November 7, 1687
• Birthplace: Holbeach, Lincolnshire, England
• Died: March 3, 1765
• Place of death: London, England

Stukeley was the foremost British antiquarian and archaeologist in the eighteenth century. He is best remembered for his careful observations, measurements, and diagrammed descriptions of Stonehenge and Avebury. Although he incorrectly attributed their construction to the Druids, he was among the first to recognize their pre-Roman origins and their historic value. He was also among the first to publicly express concern over their preservation.

Early Life

William Stukeley was the eldest son in a family of five children. He shared a close relationship with his father, John, who was a respected attorney; he was less attached to his undemonstrative mother, Frances Bullen. At age five, William was sent to the Free School at Holbeach, where he first learned to draw, a skill that he would use throughout his career. He excelled in learning and enjoyed making maps, collecting coins, and studying science.

In 1701 he was apprenticed into his father’s law firm, but he disliked legal training and was allowed to leave for Bene’t Hall (now Corpus Christi College). He pursued medical studies at Cambridge, but the deaths of his parents and two of his siblings interrupted his education in 1706 and 1707. After his graduation from Cambridge in 1709, he moved to London to study medicine under Richard Mead at St. Thomas’s Hospital. The following year he returned to Lincolnshire to set up medical practice in Boston. There he looked after his younger siblings and settled debts remaining after his father’s early death. He also pursued antiquarian studies and joined a society to discuss the ancient history of Britain.

Life’s Work

William Stukeley had many interests. Although he was trained as a physician, he also studied theology, science, and antiquities. In 1717 he returned to London, became involved with reestablishing the Society of Antiquaries, and served as the first secretary, a post he would hold for nine years. In 1718, through his continued acquaintance with Richard Mead, he became a fellow of the Royal Society. At the Royal Society he associated with some of the most gifted men of his time, including Sir Isaac Newton.

Stukeley received his medical degree from Cambridge in 1719 and was admitted a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians the following year. In his first anatomical presentation to the Royal Society, he showed drawings of vertical sections of the human body; although Leonardo da Vinci pioneered the technique, Stukeley might have been the first English anatomist to use this method of presentation.

The 1720’s marked a key period in his life. He supported himself financially as a physician and so was free to pursue his antiquarian studies as well. Many members of the Society of Antiquaries limited their interests to the Middle Ages, but Stukeley and his friends founded the Society of Roman Knights in 1722 to focus on the ancient history of Roman Britain. Members were given nicknames from Celtic history, and Stukeley was called “Chyndonax,” a Druid name by which he was known even after the group disbanded. He embarked on annual tours of the English countryside, on horseback, and sketched and recorded his observations of ancient sites. Material from seven of these tours formed the body of his Itinerarium Curiosum: Or, An Account of the Antiquitys and Remarkable Curiositys in Nature or Art (1724). On these tours he initiated fieldwork that was to become his most notable achievement: studies of the sites of Stonehenge and Avebury.

Stukeley studied Stonehenge and Avebury during the summers between 1719 and 1724. Although John Aubrey had examined these same sites sixty years earlier, Stukeley’s investigation was more comprehensive and systematic. His work involved careful observation, detailed measurements, and accurate descriptions with accompanying drawings and diagrams. He developed a typology of stone-temple characteristics and was the first to thoroughly diagram the configurations of the stone circles and their environs. He was the first to recognize the raised “avenues,” as he called them, at both sites, and also was the first to discover that Stonehenge was astronomically aligned. Noting the importance of stratigraphy (the geology of strata), he developed careful excavation techniques and pioneered the use of the cross-section diagram. He was aware that careful recording was vital in preserving information about historic monuments that were facing deterioration and destruction—natural as well as by the hands of humans.

After 1726, Stukeley’s life changed. He left London and moved his medical practice to Grantham, Lincolnshire. Reasons for the move may have been his love of country life, his perceived lack of support for his antiquarian endeavors or his treatment for gout. The following year he married Frances Williamson, a local woman who was to bear three daughters. In 1729 he was ordained into the Church of England and became vicar at All Saints, Stamford. Many were surprised by his ordination, as nonbelief was common among eighteenth century scientists. His religious interests, however, were deep-rooted, if somewhat unconventional.

After Stukeley’s ordination, his work became increasingly speculative. He romanticized the Druids and their role in Britain’s history. He believed Christianity was prefigured in ancient Druid religion. He identified both Stonehenge and Avebury (which he called “Abury”) as Druid temples. His Palaeographia Sacra: Or, Discourses on Monuments of Antiquity That Relate to Sacred History (1736) linked his archaeological and religious studies. In 1739, two years after his wife died, he married Elizabeth Gale and used her substantial dowry to publish Stonehenge: A Temple Restor’d to the British Druids (1740) and Abury: A Temple of the British Druids (1743). These publications further intermingled his meticulous scientific fieldwork with imaginative religious conjecture.

In 1747, when the duke of Montagu offered Stukeley a place to live in Queen’s Square, Bloomsbury, he returned to London. Despite the success of his books on Stonehenge and Avebury, he was involved in some controversy resulting from his endorsements of a forged medieval history of ancient Britain and a collection of prose poems falsely claimed to be ancient works by the third century poet Ossian. Nevertheless, Stukeley was regarded as a scientist as well as an antiquarian, and he remained an important figure in English society. In 1750 he published his widely known The Philosophy of Earthquakes, Natural and Religious: Or, An Inquiry into Their Cause and Purpose. In 1753 he was chosen as a trustee in establishing the British Museum and also was involved with the oversight of the Foundling Hospital. He died on March 3, 1765, after suffering a stroke.

Significance

William Stukeley was an eclectic scholar and a paradoxical figure who bridged the worlds of British antiquarianism and archaeology. His careful observations, descriptions, measurements, and diagrams were important components in the development of archaeological field surveys. His investigations of the stone circles at Avebury and Stonehenge were the most thorough and systematic studies undertaken up to that time. At both sites, he noted features that had never before been documented. Believing the sites to be prehistoric sanctuaries, Stukeley set about proving that they predated medieval or Roman times.

Because his publications intermixed his fieldwork with his Druidic conjectures, the accuracy of his descriptions and drawings has been doubted. However, late investigations of Stonehenge and Avebury (including the rediscovery of “Beckhampton Avenue” at Avebury) have substantiated his findings. His detailed observations provide a valuable record of monuments and their environs before they were subjected to additional weathering and depredation. Contemporary analysis of his fieldwork reveals how much has been destroyed since the eighteenth century. Stukeley, who was among the first to recognize the historic importance of the ruins and to express concern over their survival, laid the foundation for modern study of these ancient sites.

In many ways he was a model for Enlightenment science: He was a trained physician, a published scholar, a pioneer in archaeological fieldwork, and a fellow of the Royal Society. Yet, he also was later ordained, and he linked Avebury and Stonehenge with Druidism. This erroneous link was perpetuated well into the twentieth century. Although his work has been subjected to scholarly criticism, it is important to examine it in terms of the intellectual environment of his time. Stukeley and his colleagues in the Royal Society engaged in intense speculation over the history of religion and the early history of the world. Classical historians had connected Druids with ancient history, and Stukeley was involved in a contemporary discussion on the role of the Druids. This is all reflected in his work.

His study of ancient ruins and speculations on the past influenced the Romantic tradition of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century English literature. Works by poets such as Thomas Gray and William Collins reflected the “Druidical Revival.” Artist and poet William Blake also was an avid proponent of Britain’s Druidic past.

Bibliography

Burl, Aubrey. Great Stone Circles. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999. Burl questions the purpose, construction, age, and distribution of stone circles. Includes color photographs, drawings, notes, a bibliography, and an index.

Haycock, David. William Stukeley: Science, Religion, and Archeology in Eighteenth-Century England. Woodbridge, England: Boydell Press, 2002. Haycock notes that Stukeley has been unfairly removed from his eighteenth century intellectual context and therefore has faced undue criticism. Includes a bibliography of Stukeley’s works, bibliographies of primary and secondary sources, and an index.

Hayman, Richard. Riddles in Stone: Myths, Archaeology, and the Ancient Britons. London: Hambledon and London Press, 2003. Although science has advanced the knowledge of Britain’s megaliths, their purposes and meanings remain subjects of debate. Photographs, reproductions, drawings, site listing, notes, bibliography, and index.

Piggott, Stuart. William Stukeley: An Eighteenth-Century Antiquary. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1985. A revised biography of Stukeley and his seemingly paradoxical character. This work includes reproductions, drawings, reconstructed journal notes from the 1721-1725 tours, reconstructed journals of fieldwork at Avebury and Stonehenge, notes, references, and an index.

Stukeley, William. The Commentarys, Diary, and Common-Place Book and Selected Letters of William Stukeley. London: Doppler Press, 1980. A 174-page collection of Stukeley’s personal writings and letters.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Stonehenge, a Temple Restor’d to the British Druids and Abury, a Temple of the British Druids. New York: Garland, 1984. Updated reprints of Stukeley’s classic works on Stonehenge and Avebury. Includes an introductory essay by Robert D. Richardson, Jr., and illustrations.