Percy Smythe, 8th Viscount Strangford

Who was Percy Smythe, 8th Viscount Strangford?

Percy Ellen Algernon Frederick William Sydney Smythe, 8th Viscount Strangford was a British nobleman and man of letters.

He was born in St Petersburg, Russia, the son of the 6th Viscount Strangford, the British Ambassador. During all his earlier years Percy Smythe was nearly blind, in consequence, it was believed, of his mother having suffered very great hardships on a journey up the Baltic Sea in wintry weather shortly before his birth. His education was begun at Harrow, whence he went to Merton College, Oxford. He excelled as a linguist, and was nominated by the vice-chancellor of Oxford in 1845 a student-attache at Constantinople.

While at Constantinople, where he served under Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, Smythe gained a mastery not only of Turkish and its dialects, but of almost every form of modern Greek, from the language of the literati of Athens to the least Hellenized Romaic.