1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Petrie, George

PETRIE, GEORGE (1790–1866), Irish antiquary, was the son of James Petrie, a native of Aberdeen, who had settled in Dublin as a portrait and miniature painter. He was born in Dublin in January 1790, and was educated as an artist. Besides attaining considerable reputation as a painter of Irish landscape, he devoted much time to the illustration of the antiquities of the country. In 1828 he was appointed to conduct the antiquarian and historical section of the ordnance survey of Ireland. In 1832 he became editor of the Dublin Penny Journal, a periodical designed to disseminate information among the masses, to which he contributed numerous articles on the history of the fine arts in Ireland. Petrie may be regarded as the first scientific investigator of Irish archaeology, his contributions to which are also in themselves of much importance. His Essay on Round Towers, for which in 1830 he received the prize of the Irish Academy, still ranks as a standard work. Among his other contributions to Irish archaeology are his Essay on the Military Architecture of Ireland and his History and Antiquities of Tara Hill. He died on the 17th of January 1866.

See the Life and Labours in Art and Archaeology of George Petrie, by William Stokes (1868).