The Stokes Family in Ireland and Cambridge

George Gabriel Stokes was a great-grandson of the well-known Dublin engineer, Gabriel Stokes, who became Deputy Surveyor General for Ireland. This chapter details the Irish Stokes family and identifies George Gabriel’s maternal ancestral lines. Then using the account by his daughter, Isabella, writing as Mrs Lawrence Humphry in her 1907 Notes and Reflections, we explore the family life and character of Stokes, concentrating on the correspondence leading to his marriage to Mary Robinson in 1857 and then their home life in Cambridge. An appendix contains biographical notes on a selection of the relatives of Stokes who were eminent, particularly in academic and medical fields, as church ministers or colonial administrators.