John Edwin Hilary Skinner

Census & other notes

1881 Census:
John and Louisa not found. Where they out of the country?

1891 Census:
With his mother

From 'The Chaplin and Skinner Families' December 1902, pp 73-81:

>> 4. John Edwin Hilary Skinner, the eldest son of Allan Maclean Skinner, Q.C., and Caroline Emily Skinner -
Born 11th January 1839 and died 20th November 1894
Barrister at Law of Lincoln's Inn
Sometime Assistant Judicial Commissioner in Cyprus
Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog
Knight Commander of the Greek Order of the Saviour

In these short family notes it is not possible to set out in detail the career and adventures of John Edwin Hilary Skinner, one of the most distinguished and interesting of its members in recent days.
After he had been entered at Eton, and was on the point of going there, he was so injured in the carriage accident already referred to on page 69, that for some four years he never rose from his bed, and it was at one time feared that he had lost his sight and other faculties. However, he made a marvellous recovery, and in later years possessed great physical strength and activity.
After his recovery he spent a good deal of his time in yachting, He was a member of the Royal Thames Yacht Club, and at different times owned several boats. The following letter written to his uncle, Sir John Dorney Harding, gives an account of an adventure in which he and Clifton Newman Curtis nearly lost their lives:--

"The Lantern House,
"St. Peter's, Thanet,
"October 9th, 1858

"Dear Uncle lohn.
" I promised to write my despatch when the Six Sisters should safely have returned to Broadstairs. Were I to defer this letter until that auspicious moment should arrive, you could not receive it until an indefnitely remote period; for we have had a mishap which will probably prevent - but I must not anticipate, so to begin the story regularly.
"After my first letter, when we were in the Solent with Holroyd Chaplin (having just visited Carisbrook), we returned to Cowes, the evening being very squally, and next day ascended Southampton Water, brought up off Netley, saw the Abbey, and proceeded the same evening to Southampton, where an the following morning Holroyd quitted us for London, his vacation being over. We remained three days at Southamptan exploring the river, then returned to Portsmouth, having the exciting adventure of getting there quite late. and entering the harbour by moonlight in a strong breeze.

We remained at our anchorage off Gosport several days, during which it blew a gale, and then, when fair weather came, we slipped across to Beaulieu river; we got aground at the mouth, but were not injured, and the next day ascended the stream on the catamaran to Beaulieu itself, saw the ruins. and came down in the evening; it was a good pull for Clifton - sixteen miles. That night we had a fire on board, some fendoffs in the bottom caught light, it is supposed from a spark falling on them whilst we were cooking -the combustion not extensive. Clifton looking from the cabin saw it, and at first thought it was sunrise, but when he discovered his mistake, easily extinguished the embers. We sailed to the westward, slept in Hurst Road. and crossed to Yarmouth next day; a nice little place: once more the catamaran was called for: we pulled up to the very end of the Yar, and from there reached Freshwater Gate by road, had a fine view of the back of the Island (which we had only seen before in the distance), saw the arched rock, and a large wreck ashore in the bay, and then returned well pleased to Yarmouth I now considered it fully time, being Sept 30th, to steer for Broadstairs. The truth is. we were a little late for yachting, though I had boated in the west country with brilliant success until December We had a fine run to Portsmouth--remained there one day to take in water and provisions. and on the second inst. sailed to the eastward. The wind moderate from the W.N.W., and though it freshened towards evening, we arrived at Shoreham without difficulty, took up a snug position in the eastern branch of the harbour, hoping to continue our voyage next day: but the weather was dark and windy, and remained so during Monday and Tuesday, there being on the latter day so strong a wind that I thaught it must be blowing itself out.

We passed the time agreeably enough, having plenty of literature on board. and when Wednesday morning (the 6th) dawned bright and cheerful, I thought that now the weather had taken a favourable turn, the more so as nearly every small craft in the harbour. and most of the larger were getting under weigh: the wind was light from the W., and although there had been some signs that made me uneasy, yet when vessel after vessel stood out, many of them bound to the westward, and even the fishing boats (which bad been windbound like ourselves) gradually departed, I felt that if ever I meant to sail, now was the time, and accordingly we weighed anchor and slipped out on the ebb. The day was delicious, just enough wind to give us full speed against the tide, and the sky almost cloudless, save that as night approached, there was a bank of ugly appearance behind which the sun set. The breere also began to sigh and whistle through our rigging, it was still to the N.W., and accordingly as we were just off Beachey Head, and not in a position to make for Newhaven, and as the long night made me unwilling to continue under weigh, I bore up for Easttbourne, off which there is a tolerable anchorage, sheltered by the head from winds above W.S.W. There we came to anchor, lighted our fire, and I cooked my last omelette: after supper Clifton read some chapters from our book, then he took the first watch and i turned in. I was awakened about eleven o'clock by the motion of the boat, and found on coming out of the cabin that the wind was S.W., and very violent, making our position by no mean. satisfactory. However, as it was pitch dark, and nothing visible but the lights of Eastbourne on our beam, there was no alternative but to ride out the storm till daybreak. So with our belts on and the catamaran cleared for action we passed the remainder of that memorable night: the Six Sisters, you must understand, behaving then, and until the end, in a manner that proved her to be a splendid sea boat. I said once or twice, "She can't ride over this, it is impossible," but the next instant she bounded like a mad thing to the top of the wave, dashing its crest from her bow, and plunging down the other side as if never to emerge again. At last day-break came, but it brought no comfort, the scene was wild and tempestuous. We were, by the marks on shore, steadily dragging towards some formidable breakers on a low point of beach, and moreover our cable was chafing, so as a last chance I resolved, as we found it impossible to weigh anchor, to cut adrift, and endeavour to fetch the port of Rye under sail, so taking the last reef in the mainsail, we hoisted away; it immediately split from top to bottom, but was otherwise effcient; then the reefed foresail was set, and the moment she felt it Clifton cut the cable Away she flew like a shot, ploughing over the waves right gallantly, and in an hour we were well out to sea, off the middle of Pevensey Bay. The waves were grand, and we kept her dry by pumping, but I perceived it was thickening to windward, and a brig, not far in that direction, suddenly seemed to let everything go, and appeared under reefed foretopsail alone In a few moments the wind increased from three parts of a gale or thereabout. to such a force as we had never been afloat in before Our mainsail was in an instant reduced (with the exception of two cloths) to shreds. We paid away in spite of all I could do, and shipped a tremendous sea. The game was now up - scud we must, and our lives - humanly speaking -depended on the foresail. Clifton worked with frantic energy at bailing the water out - the pump was now too slow - everything heavy was thrown overboard; I steered, and though once or twice nearly washed away, never quitted the helm, which was my part of the duty .Three more seas came over us; one of them must have brought on board at least two tons of water, for we floated for some minutes within six inches of the surface, but Clifton succeeded in getting it sufficiently under before the next high wave, to save us from going down; he moreover threw overboard nearly all the shingle ballast, so that towards the end we rode lighter than at first. Meanwhile I had been in great anxiety about the rocks at Fairleigh dead to leeward, and between the tremendous waves edged away to eastward as much as I dared. Great was our joy when, through the mist and spray and torrents of rain, we made out that we were off a low open shore, which I recognised as being between Winchelsea and Rye. I saw a coastguard station, and made for it as an obvious advantage.

Now came our last manoeuvre. We were approaching the land at about ten miles an hour, and the waves were striking the shore laterally, we sailing on the tack rather along shore, when just outside the last breakers we suddenly gibed the two remaining cloths of the mainsail, caring now nothing for the risk of being capsized, round she flew - darted between the ridges, and struck the beach with only one breaker instead of three or four. However, the surf was not to be entirely avoided on a lee shore in a gale: in another moment our boom snapped, our foresail went to pieces, we broached to, and all management of the boat was over. There was a short but desperate struggle with our lifebelts. I kept my consciousness, put my hand over my head to protect it. When I next emerged upon the scene, I was stretched on the beach, with two guards supporting me, and Clifton, rather better off, leaning on the arm of another. The tide was ebbing fast (I had hoped and intended to arrive at this exact period), so the Six Sisters was rolled and bundled up to the top of the beach; and there, after a few minutes' pounding, a rope was attached to her by the coastguards, and they hauled her beyond the water, which ebbed away from her so fast, that she sustained. I was told, no serious injury in the hull. The men expressed great admiration of the wonderful way she had lived through it; saying that few boats of her size would have floated five minutes. We were conveyed utterly exhausted to the station, put to bed in one of their cottages, and treated with the greatest kinddess. They thought at first we were fishermen, but gave us their dry clothes, hot drink, and in fact were the means of restoring us, especially myself, to such. condition, that in a few hours we were able, alter dining with Lieut. Ferrar (who, when he had seen our clothes saved from the wreck, and other things which showed him we were amateurs in distress, invited us most cordially to his table), we were able to proceed in a spring cart to the house of Mr. Smith, whom I fortunately knew, in the neighbourhood of Rye. where we received from the kind old gentleman such treatment as our adventures called for - slept comfortably, and were furnished with the means of continuing our journey home by rail. We arrived yesterday afternoon in perfect health, after sustaining a disaster which, but for the merciful interposition of Providence, might have proved worse than it did,
"My boat, being a wreck, will of course remain for the winter where the force of circumstances has laid her up; though after the way she behaved, I shall be proud to feel her under me again some day. Everything belonging to her, that was saved, is stored in the coastguard boathouse, and will be under their protection The kindness they showed, especially the family we were quartered on, was beyond description
"This account is rather long; but I thought you would like every particular of so stirring an occurrence. I think that you will perceive that we did all that men could do in such a storm. As to the moment when our mainsail was destroyed, though that was bad, I have thought that a stronger sail would, in such a gust, have been not unlikely to capsize us. That we did not fetch Rye was, perhaps, of the best, as I am told that at the time we were in the offing, the river was almost impracticable.
"I remain your affectionate Nephew,
"JOHN EDWIN SKINNER

" P.S. Providentially at the last, having thrown off all clothing but our shirts and trourers, I being the lighter swimmer, gave C. my lifebelt in addition to his own, and put on a large jacket of corks - their battered condition shows what saved my body in the pounding on the beach, which would have burst the lifebelt I have met the severest gale I could encounter - found the means used for safety sufficient and gained an exprience well worth the cost of the peril. Our run was over at 10·37 a.m., when my watch stopped. The weather then reported at Deal as 'very violent gale, with squalls.' "

On the 3oth April, 1864, J. E. H. Skinner married Louisa Sarah Chaplin, daughter of John Clarke Chaplin and Matilda Adriana Chaplin - the first of the three marriages which have so closely united the families of Chaplin and Skinner.
Although he was called to the bar, and followed the Northern Circuit with considerable regularity, and also for a short period held an official appointment in the Island of Cyprus, it was as a war correspondent that J. E. H. Skinner was best known.
In the Danish War of 1864 he corresponded for The Daily News with great distinction; a lasting recollection of this campaign is to be found in 'The Tale of Danish Heroism,' which he published in 1865.
After the conclusion of the war he travelled in the United States and Canada, and in his book, "After the Storm," he has described the Southern States as he found them after the civil war. It was during this tour that his eldest son, John Allan Cleveland Skinner was born at Cleveland (hence his third name) on the 19th September, 1865.
Returning to Europe, he saw something of the war between Prussia and Austria and the fighting in Italy, and was present at Garibaldi's defeat at Mentana. He then went to Crete, which was at that time convulsed with the struggle of the Islanders against Turkish misrule. In 1867 he made known to England through the columns of the Daily News the bravery and sufferings of the insurgent Christians of Crete.
To raise money for the Cretans he proceeded to give lectures in England and the United States, and by his graphic accounts of the state of affairs in Crete, of the Turkish blockades which he had run, and of all the perils and hardships suffered by the brave patriots. He was thus able to obtain sufficient money to purchase an ambulance and other medical requirements, with which in 1868 he ran the blockade into Crete, where he rendered aid to the sick and wounded and shared the privations of the starving population. He was appointed Inspector General of Hospitals by the Insurgent Government, and, after a stay of three months in the island, left one dark night in an open boat, barely eluding a Turkish frigate, and passing so near her that he heard the steps of the sentinel on the deck. At such a moment discovery meant instant death.
Amongst the Cretans [insert .bmp?] was a well known and very popular personality.
In 1868 he published reminiscences of these days in a volume called 'Roughing it in Crete,' which was translated into Greek by Mr. Dickson, British Vice-Consul at Athens and Professor at the University.
Then in 1870 came the great Franco-Prussian War, and J. E. H. Skinner was at an early date with the Prussian army, again representing The Daily News, and this is the most suitable place in which to quote an appreciation which appeared in The Daily News on the 2?th November, 1894, a few days after his death.



RECOLLECTIONS of MR. SKINNER.
By ARCHIBALD FORBES

Gradually are thinning the ranks of the "Old Guard" of war correspondents and artists who, with pen and pencil, commemorated for behoof of their countrymen who sat at home at ease the "battles, sieges, fortunes" of the France-German war. As the corporal sang in "The Starling," "Of the old comrades, few are now remaining," and the handful of survivors have to-day to mourn the ending of one of the brightest, ablest, and most genial of their dwindling number. On the afternoon of Saturday last it happened that I was reading in the late General Sir Beauchamp Walker's "Days of a Soldier's Life" of his pleasant and cordial intercourse with Hilary Skinner and his comrade, the gifted and handsome Landells, during the march with the Crown Prince from the fierce struggle of Worth by the way of Sedan to Versailles; when a telegram arrived which told me that Skinner was dead. We had not met for years; but as the telegram imparting the sad intelligence lay before me, there rose in my mind a flood of recollections of the cheery comrade with whom many happy hours had been passed, and of the brilliant correspondent on whose vivid and picturesque war letters to the Daily News thousands of men and women at home hung rivetted day after day as they pictured the awful scenes of the fighting around Sedan, the Prussian marches through stunned and bewildered France, the memorable spectacle in the Galerie des Glaces when the Princes and warriors hailed with loud "Hochs!" old King William as the German Emperor, and the final triumph of the Teuton soldiers as in serried ranks and with bands playing they marched down the Champs Elysées into the Place de la Concorde.
The war was nearly half over when Skinner and I first struck hands, but I had known him by sight before then. From the earliest days of~the war he was of the salt of the earth in a correspondent sense--attached to the Crown Prince's staff, entitled to billets on the march, and a privileged person in the matter of information. As for me, in those early days I was a free lance, tramping along with the scouts with my knapsack on my back, and gathering my information, so to speak, at the point of the bayonet. On the morning of the 4th September, three days after the battle of Sedan, I had crossed the frontier to Bouillon to despatch a telegram, and I was in the street of that dingy little place when two horsemen cantered up and alighted at the door of the Hotel de la Poste. Another correspondent was with me, who asked me whether I knew who the two riders were. I answered in the negative, when he said, "The stout man is Dr. Russell, of The Times [William Howard Russell, look him up on the internet]; the dapper little fellow on the handsome black mare is Hilary Skinner, of The Daily News [John Edwin Hilary Skinner is on the internet too]. I looked with great interest at the pair; but I should not have thought of accosting them. They were the élite of the profession: I was among the novices. By-and-by, having lunched, they came out and remounted, and, to my great surprise, rode away - not back towards Sedan, but in the direction of the railway to Brussels. The solution of this mystery was later revealed. The little story, as it was told to me, was as follows; it may not be quite accurate in all its details, but is, I believe, substantially true. Russell and Skinner were billetted together at Donchery, a village near Sedan. During most of the night of the 3rd, seated at the same table, they wrote steadily, scanning each other's face occasionally. Both had resolved on the same plan, but each desired to conceal his intention, yet was haunted by the suspicion that the other had divined his purpose. Next morning Skinner, in his airy manner, ordered his horse, explaining to Russell that he had the idea of taking a final ride over the battlefield. "Happy thought!" cried Russell; "my letter is off my mind, and I will go too." On they rode among the unburied dead still littering the slopes above Sedan, till they reached the Belgian frontier, when Skinner, with a fluttering jauntiness chirruped, "Well, Russell, I'll say good-bye for a few hours; I'll just ride on into Bouillon and get a morsel of luncheon there." "Faith," remarked Russell, with all imaginable innocence, .. I'm hungry too; I don't mind if I go with you. "So they rode, and they lunched, and they remounted; and then they started, but not by the way they had come; indeed, as I have said, in the contrary direction. Then it was that they looked each other straight in the face and burst into a simultaneous roar of laughter. The little attempt at mutual deception was at an end; each from the first had meant going through to London with his copy, and they travelled thither together.
Skinner and I became colleagues when, a short time later, I joined The Daily News. After the capitulation of Metz I came on to Paris, and then it was that I had the pleasure to make his personal acquaintance. When I entered the quarters occupied by him and his chum Landells in Versailles, it was with some not unnatural surprise that I found Landells on the floor with Skinner sitting on his head, a position which the latter continued affably to maintain while he shook hands with me and began to talk in the voluble and sparkling manner which was his most salient characteristic. He would talk for half-an-hour without intermission, and the brightest, liveliest, and most humorous talk it was; then he would write a few sentences of his letter, drop the pen, jump across the room, and engage in a wrestling match with Landells. Vivacity tingled in every fibre of the little man, but he could be serious when he chose. He was a great favourite with the Crown Prince. After the war, when we were all back in Berlin, the Crown Princess, now the Empress Frederick, admitted him to her intimacy, and one used often to see her Highland gillie, in kilt and plaid, staking up the Linden to Skinner's quarters with a message from the Princess bidding him to her afternoon tea. During the long stay in Versailles he was much in the society of the staff of the Crown Prince at Les Ombrages, and to his friendly intimacy there The Daily News was indebted for many items of valuable and exclusive information. When he took me to Les Ombrages to introduce me there and to procure me introductions to the Crown Prince of Saxony, the Commander of the Army of the Meuse on the North side of Paris, to whose headquarters I was anxious to be assigned, I was surprised by the influence he was able to exert in the furtherance of my object. He was the most voluble man I ever knew. Silence seemed to be his detestation. I used to believe that he held conversations with himself if there was nobody present to talk to. He spoke in a steady stream, and it was always good, bright, airy talk, but discursive beyond expression. Russell, in his "Diary of the Last Great War," has a humorous passage on the subject of Skinner's volubility during a ride they made together. "He had," so Russell writes, "from the uncontrollable desire to impart information which possessed him, and rendered him one of the most lively and interesting of companions, got me into a succession of small troubles along the road. I cannot tell how often we were halted and cross-examined, owing to the irrelevant outflow of his vivacious conversation and sprightly turn of mind. Whenever a sentry or patrol was at hand, it was my companion's habit to begin to prepare for an encounter by getting his credentials in order, clearing his throat, and beginning a little speech. "Good morning, my friend. We are two English gentlemen who are taking a ride; we are perfectly innocent; we are not carrying any documents about us. What a very fine day it is! What wonderful times we live in!" I suggested that he should follow my infallible receipt: 'When you meet a sentry or vedette, slacken your pace, and as you approach him go at a walk. If he halts you, immediately produce your passes, saying to him, "It is all right, sentry," in rather a-quick, decided tone, which will make him rather ashamed of himself for detaining you."
Skinner's letters written during the France-German war are contained in the volumes of The Daily News Correspondence, published by Macmillan's, nor have they any special token by which they can be distinguished from those of many other correspondents who served their journals with so much energy and loyalty during that anxious and exciting period. The careful reader may haply discover his work by the vivid picturesqueness of his style. If occasionally discursive, his letters were never dull or dry. To my thinking, of all the multitude of war-letters that in my time have ever appeared in the columns of The Daily News, next to MacGahan's wonderful picture of the fall of Plevna is entitled to rank Skinner's most lurid and striking description of the awful battlefield on the morrow of the battle of Sedan. But indeed all his letters of this period were instinct with colour and vigour of touch; had I space I might quote extract on extract, each full of vividness and descriptive power. Skinner was a veteran of many campaigns, in all of which, I believe, he served The Daily News. A man of singular modesty, he was a journalistic campaigner simply because he liked and enjoyed the work and the danger; he never courted notoriety. His name is not to be found in "Men of the Time."

In politics J. E. H. Skinner was an ardent Liberal - a Gladstonian, as the party was then called - and in October, 1885, he contested the South Paddington Division (London) against the late Lord Randolph Churchill, and in 1886 the Strand Division (London) against the late Right Hen. W. H. Smith, but did not succeed in obtaining a seat in the House.
After the last of these elections his health, weakened by many hardships, and especially by fever contracted in the Egyptian Campaign of 1882, began to decline. In the autumn of 1894 he was advised to try the climate of Biskra, in Algeria, on the borders of the Great Sahara, and on his way there from Algiers died on the 20th November, 1894, at Sétif, where he was buried.
At his death his estate of Cronkould, in the Isle of Man, passed to his son, John Allan Cleveland Skinner; and it is interesting here to recall the fact that this estate was formerly occupied by Captain James Maclean, whose widow, Mrs. Emma Maclean, left it to Mr. Allan Maclean Skinner, Q.C.
Mr. J. E. H. Skinner's published works (not including newspaper and magazine articles) consist of "The Tale of Danish Heroism," published 1865; 'After the Storm," I866; "Roughing it in Crete," 1868; "Handbook to the Game of Rataplan," 1875; " Turkish Rule in Crete," 1877 <<


From the Dictionary of National Biography:

SKINNER, JOHN EDWIN HILARY (1839-1894), special correspondent, elder son of Alien Maclean Skinner, Q.C.,and a descendant of Matthew Skinner [q. v.], was born in London in January 1839, and educated at London University, where he graduated LL.D. in 1861. In the same year he was called to the bar from Lincoln's Inn, and went the northern circuit. A first-rate linguist, he obtained a commission from the 'Daily News' as special correspondent with the Danish army in the war of 1864. He was present during the campaign down to the fall of Alsen at the end of June, whereupon Christian IX presented him with the Dannebrog order. A partial success only can be ascribed to his attempt to unravel the Schleswig-Holstein complication in' The Tale of Danish Heroism' (London, 1866, 8vo); his opinion as to the superiority of the Prussian breech-loaders, however, was amply vindicated in the following year, when Skinner reported the Austro-Prussian campaign. In the meantime Skinner had visited America, and on his return wrote two sketchy volumes entitled 'After the Storm' (London, 1866, 8vo), dealing with the United States, Canada (the 'Tendon Achilles' of the British empire, of which he advocates the independence), and Mexico. In 1867 he ran the blockade into Crete, and in 'Roughing it in Crete' (London, 1867, 8vo) advocated the cession of Crete to Greece. This, he contended, would not only conciliate liberal opinion, but would concentrate the Turkish power. Nine years later, on this same subject he contributed 'Turkish Rule in Crete,' denouncing the 'blighting effect' of Turkish misgovernment, to the' Eastern Question Association' papers (No. ix. 1877). During the Franco-German war of 1870 Skinner was attached to the crown prince of Prussia's staff, and described the battles from Wörth to Sedan. ( He carried his account of the decisive battle from Donchéry,near Sedan, to London - riding neck and neck with Dr.Russell of the 'Times, and crossing from Ostend in the same boat. Their narratives appeared simultaneously on 6 Sept., having been anticipated only in the 'Pall Mall Gazette.' For a short time, in the spring of 1881, Skinner was assistant 'judicial commissioner in Cyprus; in 1886 he unsuccessfully contested the constituency of South Paddington against Lord Randolph I Churchill. He died at Setif in Algeria, whither he had gone for his health, early in November 1894. A 'dapper little man,' over-flowing with vivacity, he was referred to by Mr. Archibald Forbes in 1870 as one of the elite of the profession. His account of Sedan has rarely been surpassed. [Daily News, 27 Nov. 1894; Times, 27 Nov. 1894; Woolrych's Lives of Eminent Serjeants, ; ii. 527; Walker's Days of a Soldier's Life, Russell's Diary of the Last Great War, pp. 240, 540, etc; Works in Brit. Museum Library.]