Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 52.djvu/358

 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 1885 he unsuccessfully contested the constituency of South Paddington against Lord Randolph Churchill. He died at Setif in Algeria, whither he had gone for his health, early in November 1894. A ‘dapper little man,’ overflowing with vivacity, he was referred to by Mr. Archibald Forbes in 1870 as one of the élite 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, &c.; Works in Brit. Museum Library.]  SKINNER, MATTHEW (1689–1749), serjeant-at-law, great-grandson of Bishop Robert Skinner [q. v.], was the third and youngest son of Robert Skinner of Welton, Northamptonshire, and of the Inner Temple, judge of the Marshalsea court, and ‘law reporter.’ Born on 22 Oct. 1689, Matthew entered Westminster school at the age of fourteen, and, being elected to a studentship at Christ Church, Oxford, matriculated on 18 June 1709, and entered himself a student of Lincoln's Inn two days afterwards. Having been called to the bar on 21 April 1716, he joined the Oxford circuit, and was chosen recorder of Oxford on 30 May 1721. In 1719 he purchased from Simon Urling (afterwards recorder of London), the place of one of the four common pleaders of the city of London, who then enjoyed the exclusive right and privilege of practising in the lord mayor's court; but this position he surrendered in 1722 to Thomas Garrard (afterwards common serjeant of London). So rapidly did his practice increase that he was called to the rank of serjeant-at-law in Easter term, 1 Feb. 1724, was made one of the king's serjeants on 11 June 1728, and became his majesty's prime (or first) serjeant by letters patent on 12 May 1734. He served as treasurer of Serjeants' Inn in 1728, and the same year published his father's ‘Reports of Cases decided in the Court of King's Bench, 33 Charles II to 9 William III.’ After making an unsuccessful attempt to enter parliament for Andover in 1727, Skinner, who resided at Oxford (1722–1739), was chosen member for that city at the general election of 1734, but on 26 Nov. 1738 vacated his seat on being appointed chief justice of Chester, and of the great sessions for the counties of Flint, Denbigh, and Montgomery, which judicial position, together with the recordership of Oxford, he occupied until his death. He was the second counsel for the crown in the prosecution of the rebels on the northern circuit in July 1746, and led for the crown at Lord Balmerino's trial in the House of Lords the same year.

Skinner married, in 1719, Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Whitfield of Watford Place, Hertfordshire, and, dying at Oxford on 21 Oct. 1749, was buried in the cathedral. His eldest son died on 8 April 1735; while another son, Matthew Skinner, was also a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, and was invited to the bench of that society on 28 Nov. 1782, but does not appear to have sat.

[Welch's Alumni Westm.; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Woolrych's Serjeants-at-Law; Official Returns of Members of Parliament; Smith's Parliaments of England: Gent. Mag. 1749, p. 476; Ockerby's Book of Dignities.]  SKINNER, ROBERT (1591–1670), bishop successively of Bristol, Oxford, and Worcester, born on 10 Feb. 1590–1, was the second son of Edmund Skinner, rector of Pitsford, Northamptonshire, and Bridget, daughter of Humphrey Radcliff of Warwickshire. After attending Brixworth grammar school, he was admitted scholar of Trinity College, Oxford, in 1607. He graduated B.A. in 1610, and M.A. in 1614. In 1613 he was elected fellow of his college, and until his death interested himself in its welfare. He proceeded B.D. in 1621, and became preacher of St. Gregory's Church, near St. Paul's Cathedral. In 1628 he succeeded his father as rector of Pitsford, and shortly after was chosen by Laud to be chaplain-in-ordinary to the king. In 1631 he was appointed rector of Launton, Oxfordshire, and in 1636 eleventh bishop of Bristol and rector of Greens Norton, Northamptonshire. He retained the livings of Launton and Greens Norton, to which were soon added those of Cuddesden, Oxfordshire, and Beckenham, Kent. In the same year he became D.D. by diploma. In 1641 he was translated to the see of Oxford. He was one of the bishops who subscribed the protest of 17 Dec. 1641, declaring themselves prevented from attendance in parliament, and was consequently committed by the lords to the Tower, where he remained eighteen weeks. Being released on bail he retired to Launton. In 1643 he was deprived of Greens Norton ‘for his malignity against the parliament.’