William Crooke

Who was William Crooke?

William Crooke was an English orientalist and "the central figure in Anglo-Indian folklore" according to Richard Mercer Dorson. He was a member of a family that had been settled in Ireland for many years, with his father being a doctor in Macroom. County Cork. He was educated at Erasmus Smith's Tipperary Grammar School, before winning a scholarship to Trinity College, Dublin and joining the Indian Civil Service.

While an administrator in India, he found abundant material for his researches in the ancient civilizations of India. He was also an accomplished hunter. Although a gifted administrator, according to Horace Rose he was "too outspoken a critic of the mechanically efficient 'Secretariat' system" to find favour with his superiors and he was allowed to retire early after 25 years of service in 1895.

Aside from his devotion to official duties, Crooke found ample time to write much on the people of India and their religions, beliefs and customs. In 1910, he was chosen to be the President of the Anthropological Section of the British Association; and having been for many years a member of the Council of the Folklore Society, he was elected President of that body in 1911. Re-elected as President of the Society in the following year, he then became the editor of its journal, Folk-lore, in 1915. He continued in this last position till his death at a nursing home in Cheltenham on 25 October 1923.