Thomas William Rhys Davids

Thomas William Rhys Davids was born on 12th May 1843 in Colchester, Essex, the son of a Congregational clergyman. Before entering the Ceylon Civil Service he studied Sanskrit at Breslau under A.F. Stenzler. He went to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1866 and immediately began to study Pali. He returned to England in 1877 and was called to the Bar but from 1882 Rhys Davids was Professor of Pali at University College London. In 1905 he took up the Chair of Comparative Religion at the University of Manchester. He was a founder member of the Royal Academy and an active member of the Royal Asiatic Society, serving as Secretary and Librarian from 1887-1904.