Peter Giles (philologist)

Dr Peter Giles (20 October 1860 – 17 September 1935) was a distinguished philologist and Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

Life

Peter Giles was born at Strichen, Aberdeenshire on 20 October 1860 and, after graduating at the University of Aberdeen, went up to Cambridge University as a scholar of Gonville and Caius College in 1882. He was placed in the first class in both parts of the Classical Tripos and in the second class in history.

After attending the lectures of Karl Brugmann at Freiburg and Leipzig, Giles brought the ideas of the Neo-grammarians to England in his only publication, A Short Manual of Comparative Philology for Classical Students, published in 1895 and subsequently translated into German.

Giles succeeded John Peile as the Reader in comparative philology at Cambridge in 1891, a position he retained until his death.

Peter Giles served as the Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge from 1910 until 1935 and as Vice-Chancellor from 1919-1920. He died in Cambridge, aged 74.

References

• Obituary in Nature, 25 September 1935
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed 21 Dec 2009

External links

• Works written by or about Peter Giles at Wikisource
• Portrait of Peter Giles

Academic offices
Preceded by William Chawner	Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge 1911-1935	Succeeded by Thomas Shirley Hele
Preceded by Arthur Shipley	Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge 1919-1920	Succeeded by Edmund Courtenay Pearce