Sir George Gabriel Stokes, the 1st Baronet, was born on August 13, 1819, in Skreen, County Sligo, Ireland.

He was a physicist and mathematician. In 1837, he graduated from Pembroke College, Cambridge, and in 1841, he was elected its fellow. His marriage prevented him from continuing at Pembroke because of a rule barring married fellows. The rule was later revoked, and twelve years later, Stokes's fellowship was reinstated. In 1849, he was appointed the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, a position he held until his death in 1903. He lectured on hydrostatics, physical optics (polarization and fluorescence), and fluid dynamics (including the Navier–Stokes equations). He was elected a Secretary for the Royal Society in 1854. He represented Cambridge University in the British House of Commons from 1887 to 1892, sitting as a Conservative. Stokes also served as president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1869) and the Royal Society (1885-1890). In 1852, he won the Royal Society's Rumford Medal and, in 1893, Copley Medal. In 1886, Stokes, a religious man throughout his life, was appointed president of the Victoria Institute, which explored the relationship between religious doctrine and the findings of science. He sided with other scientists in their critical view of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. In 1889, Queen Victoria created him the Baronet. Stokes published numerous treatises on mathematical, philosophical, and scientific subjects.

In 1857, he married Mary Susanna Robinson (1825–1899). He died on February 1, 1903, in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England.