Arthur Berriedale Keith (5 April 1879 – 6 October 1944) was a Scottish constitutional lawyer, scholar of
Sanskrit and
Indologist
Indology, also known as South Asian studies, is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent, and as such is a subset of Asian studies.
The term ''Indology'' (in German, ''Indologie'') i ...
. He became
Regius Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology and Lecturer on the Constitution of the British Empire in the
University of Edinburgh. He served in this role from 1914 to 1944.
Biography
Arthur Berriedale Keith was born in
Edinburgh, the fourth child and third son of Davidson Keith (1842–1921), an advertising agent, and Margaret Stobie Keith, ''
née
A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...
'' Drysdale (1851–1911). All his five siblings were associated with the British Empire in Burma and India:
Sir William John Keith KCSI, ICS, was acting governor of Burma in 1925, Steuart Keith (died 1925) was a sessions judge in Burma, Alan Davidson Keith (died 1928) was a barrister in Burma. Both of his sisters married British expatriates in the region.
Keith was educated at the
Royal High School, Edinburgh
The Royal High School (RHS) of Edinburgh is a co-educational school administered by the City of Edinburgh Council. The school was founded in 1128 and is one of the oldest schools in Scotland. It serves 1,200 pupils drawn from four feeder primar ...
, the
University of Edinburgh (MA 1897; DLitt 1914), and
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...
(BA 1900; BCL 1905; DCL 1911). At Oxford he took
Firsts
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...
in firsts in
classical moderations (1899), in Sanskrit and Pali (1900), and in ''
literae humaniores'' (1901). He was
called to the bar
The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...
by the
Inner Temple in 1904 and became a member of the
Faculty of Advocates in 1921.
He joined the
Colonial Office as a clerk in 1901, having ranked first in the Home and Indian civil service examinations; he was said to have received the highest marks ever. He remained in the department until 1914, except for a period with the
Crown Agents
Crown Agents Ltd is a not-for-profit international development company with head office in London, United Kingdom, and subsidiaries in USA and Japan.
Crown Agents fully owns Greenshields Cowie, a freight forwarding limited company incorporated in ...
from 1903 to 1905. From 1912 to 1914 he was private secretary to the permanent under-secretary,
Sir John Anderson.
In 1914, he became Regius Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology at the University of Edinburgh. In 1927 he additionally became Lecturer on the Constitution of the British Empire.
Keith was awarded an honorary LLD from the
University of Leeds in 1936. He was elected a
Fellow of the British Academy in 1935, but resigned in 1939.
He is buried in
Grange Cemetery
The Grange (originally St Giles' Grange) is an affluent suburb of Edinburgh, just south of the city centre, with Morningside and Greenhill to the west, Newington to the east, The Meadows park and Marchmont to the north, and Blackford Hil ...
in
Edinburgh with his wife, Margaret Balfour Allan (died 1934). The grave lies on the south side of the central vaults, adjacent to the central archway through the vaults.
Works
Constitutional law and history
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Indian culture and literature
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‘The Period of the Later Samhitās, the Brahmaņas, the Āraņyakas, and the Upanishads�� in ''The Cambridge History of India'', vol. i (Cambridge: University Press, 1922).
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Translations
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References
; Bibliography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Keith, Arthur Berriedale
1879 births
1944 deaths
Academics from Edinburgh
People educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh
Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
Academics of the University of Edinburgh
British Sanskrit scholars
Scottish civil servants
20th-century Scottish historians
Scottish Indologists
Scottish legal writers
Scottish philologists
Scottish religious writers
Scottish political writers
Scottish translators
British barristers
Lawyers from Edinburgh
Burials at the Grange Cemetery