WILLIAM

See also:

• WILLIAM STUKELEY (1687-2765)

STUKELEY (1687-2765)  , English antiquary, was born at Holbeach, Lincolnshire, on the 7th of November 1687; the son of a Iawyer . After taking his M.B. degree at Cambridge, he went to London and studied medicine at St Thomas's Hospital . In 1710 he started in practice in Lincolnshire, removing in 1717 to London . In the same year he became a fellow of the Royal Society, and, in 1718, joined in the establishment of the Society of Antiquaries, acting for nine years as its secretary . In . 1719 he took his M.D. degree and in 1720 became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, publishing in the same year his first contribution to antiquarian literature . His principal work, an elaborate account of Stonehenge, appeared in 1740, and he wrote copiously on other supposed Druid remains, becoming familiarly known as the " Arch-Druid." In 1729 he took holy orders, and, after holding two livings in Lincolnshire, was appointed rector of a parish in Bloomsbury, London . He died in London on the 3rd of March 1765 .