Percy Ellen Algernon Frederick William Sydney Smythe, 8th Viscount Strangford (26 November 1825 – 9 January 1869) was a British nobleman and man of letters.
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Early life
He was born in St Petersburg, Russia, the son of the 6th Viscount Strangford, the British Ambassador, Ottoman Turkey, Sweden, and Portugal. During all his earlier years, Percy Smythe was nearly blind, in consequence, it was believed, of his mother having suffered hardship on a journey up the Baltic Sea in wintry weather shortly before his birth.
His education began at Harrow School, whence he went to Merton College, Oxford. He excelled as a linguist, and was nominated by the vice-chancellor of Oxford in 1845 as a student-attache at Constantinople.
Career
While at Constantinople, where he served under Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, Smythe gained a mastery not only of Turkish and its dialects, but of the forms of modern Greek. He already had a good knowledge both of Persian and Arabic before going east. It was the study of Ottoman history that led him to the languages
