STACE, Walter Terence (1886-1967)

Extract from autobiography of William Terence Stace, covering his work as a civil servant in Ceylon, 1910-1932, particularly as a cadet in Galle, a police magistrate, private secretary to the Governor (Sir Robert Chalmers), district judge at Negombo, and an official (ultimately, the head) of the Land Settlement Department. With letter from H E Newman to T E Smith, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, commenting on Stace's work.

Walter Terence Stace (1886-1967) first went out to Ceylon as a young civil servant in 1910, accompanied by a wife (Adelaide) considerably older than himself. Beginning as a cadet in Galle, he gradually rose in the administrative hierarchy to become a police magistrate, private secretary to the Governor (Sir Robert Chalmers), district judge at Negombo, and an official (ultimately, the head) of the Land Settlement Department. During his last ten years in the colony, while working on land settlement, Stace divorced his first wife (who had returned to Britain) and married Blanche Beven; and he spent an increasing amount of time writing on philosophy which from an early age had been a significant personal interest. He resigned from the civil service in 1932 to become a teacher of philosophy at Princeton University, USA.
Stace published several works on philosophy, including A critical history of Greek philosophy (1920), The philosophy of Hegel: a systematic exposition (1924), The meaning of beauty: a theory of aesthetics (1929), The theory of knowledge and existence (1932), The concept of morals (1937), The destiny of western man (1942), and Mysticism and philosophy (1961).

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Created 27/09/2000, revised by Alan Kucia as part of the RSLP AIM25 project, Aug 2001.

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The typecript is a draft of part of a larger autobiography of Stace, comprising chapters 7-16 inclusive. It is not known whether the work was published. The provenance of the work is unknown, but appears to have been sent to T E Smith at the ICS in c.1965.

The ICS has several other collections relating to administration in Ceylon, including J R Granville Bantock ICS 27; Edward Trevor Dyson (ICS 16) John Ferguson (ICS 86), M W Roberts (ICS 65), T W Roberts (ICS 66) and M K T Sandys (ICS 71).