[9] In 1865[10] he married María del Rosario de Ibarra y Arambarri (1846-1875),[11] heir to the family which already formed part of the Basque industrial oligarchy;[12] it controlled 40% of the Biscay iron ore mining.

[13] Her father and Julio's maternal grandfather was among provincial political magnates; he served as president of Diputación de Vizcaya and held a number of other official positions, apart from leading many commercial and corporative bodies.

Following the bachillerato obtained in 1887,[24] the same year he enrolled at faculty of law at the Jesuit Deusto college, just set up with immense financial and organizational help of the Ibarra family.

[32] Julio's aunt Rafaela[33] founded Congregación de los Santos Angeles Custodios; in 1984 she was beatified by the Roman Catholic Church and her canonization process is ongoing.

[35] Though some sources refer to Urquijo as exposed to Carlist heritage from his early childhood,[36] other works suggest that his ancestors, especially on the paternal side, were Liberal dinasticos.

[45] During the 1905 campaign Urquijo did not join - as he was initially rumored – Liga Foral Autonomista,[46] but declared himself in disagreement with its manifesto;[47] as a Carlist he unsuccessfully competed in Tolosa against the fuerista candidate.

[48] Still in Tolosa Urquijo was initially reported as running in the 1907 campaign,[49] but eventually he joined electoral efforts of Esteban Bilbao in Vitoria,[50] briefly detained as a result of his altercation with jefe of the local Guardia Civil.

[56] Following the unrest which rocked Catalonia later that year Urquijo, assisting his father-in-law, got engaged in trafficking arms, intended for a potential Carlist insurgency.

[59] Having moved from France[60] and settled in San Sebastián,[61] he is not known as active in Carlist structures in final years of the Restoration period or during the Primo de Rivera dictatorship.

[75] Urquijo represented the Carlists on the key assembly, gathering deputies and local Vasco-Navarrese mayors, and left before the end of "disagreeable session"; soon afterwards the Catholic-fuerista minority disintegrated altogether.

[78] Though obituaries claimed that he "militió siempre en las filas del Tradicionalismo español"[79] no study confirms (or denies) that he remained a Carlist also in the 1940s.

Among Urquijo's Deusto teachers Román Biel and Tomás Escriche Mieg were those who raised his interest in linguistics;[80] it was further reinforced by comparative works[81] of Julio Cejador[82] and by Resurreción María Azkue, who served as the family chaplain[83] and in 1888 assumed the chair of Basque language in Instituto de Bilbao.

[89] Living in aristocratic and cosmopolitan Saint-Jean-de-Luz Urquijo got his xenophile attitude reinforced,[90] though he became disappointed with chaotic and contrived character of volapük, which he finally abandoned in 1905.

[96] Urquijo's own interest in Basque was very much formatted along Schuchardt's lines, with focus on historical analysis, cross-linguistic influences, hybrids, "Sprachmischung" and comparatistics at the expense of neo-grammar.

[100] Urquijo was fully aware of his deficiencies in terms of linguistic professional training, which resulted in extreme criticism towards own work, combined with focus on verifiability, sound referential basis, documentation, systematic approach, caution towards speculative hypotheses and, last but not least, personal modesty.

[102] He started to collect historical Basque prints; during electoral campaigns he allegedly instructed his agents to look for books rather than for votes, launching a widely scaled search and patrolling caserios, churches and convents.

[112] At that time he was already harboring an idea of "Academia de la Lengua Vascongada" and influenced his older brother accordingly;[113] the result was a 1906 initiative fathered by Adolfo Urquijo as head of the Biscay Diputacion,[114] though it eventually came to nothing.

[116] Formally he delegated editorial duties[117] standing as owner and manager,[118] though Urquijo remained its moving spirit,[119] attracting a number of Spanish[120] and foreign correspondents.

[125] Its key role was introducing scientific standards,[126] bringing foreign vascology to Spain,[127] re-publishing historical Basque texts and broadening research to new fields.

[130] When in 1911 the Gipuzkoan diputación decided to launch its own San Sebastián review promoting the Basque culture, Urquijo was among co-founders of Euskalerriaren Alde; he remained in its executive council[131] and contributed until the periodical closed in 1931.

[147] In late 1937 Urquijo entered the re-established Nationalist RAE as its secretary,[148] assuming "the second most important academic position" in the Francoist zone;[149] during the first sitting of 1938 he swore loyalty to "Caudillo, Salvador de nuestro pueblo".

[164] The key feature of Urquijo's work is its great multifariousness, as his contribution falls into a number of areas: general linguistics, comparative linguistics, paremiology, onomastics, ancient songs and stories, origin of the Basque language, folklore, archaeology, heraldry, etymology, music, literature including poetry, invented universal languages and commercial history of Bilbao, not to count single pieces representing odd and isolated subjects.

[176] Some vascólogos even consider his polemical effort as one of key threads of his entire activity,[177] pointing that he did not refrain from and indeed willingly engaged in always amicable disputes with Eleizalde,[178] Baroja and many others.

[181] Another line of conflict with the Aranists was their perceived obsession with linguistic purity, entangled in "extravagant etymologies" and "most grotesque hypotheses";[182] one of the SEV objectives was to wrest the language issue away from zealous nationalists,[183] especially that Urquijo personally appreciated internal variability of Basque dialects.

[196] It is also evident that following the course set by RIEV, SEV formatted its profile as focused on scientific research, somewhat leaning towards historical analysis, and refrained from assuming regulatory and normative role.

[198] This could have been also the result of his wish to steer clear of potential conflict areas, such as nagging present-day issues, which might have wrecked SEV's impartiality and damaged its blank political profile.

Though expressed first during late Francoism in somewhat Aesopian language, the point was that confessional nature of Basque cultural institutions of that era[200] was incompatible with strictly neutral stand.

In 1909 nominated academico correspondiente of Real Academia de la Historia[202] and member of a number of prestigious bodies,[203] in 1924 he was named doctor honoris causa by University of Bonn.

[206] In the 1930s his home, and especially its vast library, was considered "el Sancta Sanctorum de la tradición vasca", Urquijo himself named "su sumo sacerdote".