Arthur Berriedale Keith

(1879-1944)
Regius Professor of Sanskrit and Lecturer in Constitutional History
in the University of Edinburgh

The third son of an Edinburgh news agent, and brother of the administrator in Burma Sir William John Keith, Arthur Berriedale Keith was educated at the Royal High School and the University of Edinburgh before going on to study at Balliol College, Oxford. He was called to the English bar and served in the Colonial Office for fourteen years before being appointed to the Regius Chair of Sanskrit in 1914. He made great contributions to Vedic and classical Sanskrit scholarship, and was called in to advise the Government during the abdication crisis in 1936. After his death his sister gifted to the University Library his books and papers on Sanskrit and the history and law of India and the British Empire. All the printed materials are listed in the pre-1985 Guard-Book Catalogue, and the papers and correspondence are listed in the "Guide to Arthur Berriedale Keith Papers and Correspondence, 1896-1941" by Ridgway F. Shinn Jr.(1981) which may be consulted in the Special Collections Department.