(d. 1764) of Rhine, Dorset; cons. Leghorn 1724 - 34, chargé d'affaires Florence 1731, 1733 - 4.
1724 - 34 Naples, Leghorn, Florence [London by 22 Oct. 1735]
Skinner was appointed British consul at Leghorn in 1724 and held the position for ten years. He also acted as chargé d'affaires in Florence in 1731 (while Francis Colman was in Parma) and in 1733 - 4 (from Colman's death until the arrival of Charles Fane in October 1734).1 Both his father and grandfather had been Italian merchants, and he had first come to Leghorn from Naples.2 He was possibly the Skinner recorded in Naples in 1717 and in 1721.
The first dispatch he received as consul was dated 2 April 1724.3 Horace Mann remembered Skinner as 'the most ridiculous dressing creature I ever saw', who wore his own black hair, 'but on any great occasions he put on a white wig with four tails and a vast deal of powder',4 but he at least proved a loyal government agent, and Lord Essex thought him the most reliable of all the British consuls.5 In 1726 Skinner had reported how the dissensions within the Pretender's court were attracting the disapproval of the Italians; the nobility because they had to yield precedence, the poor because of the financial burden the Stuarts gave to the State, and the middle class because of the reduction of the number of British visitors.6
In August 1732, during the installation of the Rev. John Swinton, the new British chaplain for the merchants at Leghorn, Skinner was said to have been less than enthusiastic - but he allowed services to be celebrated in his own house, and in the same year he protested over the appointment of a British consul at the papal port of Civitavecchia (see Richard Gaven). In August 1733 Skinner applied, unsuccessfully, to succeed Colman as British resident in Florence, also pointing out that he had yet to be paid for maintaining two establishments, at Leghorn and Florence.7 The new British resident, Charles Fane, arrived in Florence in October 1734 and Skinner's last dispatch was dated Leghorn, 1 December 1734.8 He was writing to Lord Essex from London on 22 October 1735, saying he would soon be back in Italy.9
1. Horn, 1:80. 2. SP 98/25. 3. Pagano de Divitiis, 145. 4. Wal.Corr., 23:238. 5. Lewis 1961, 101. 6. Ibid., 81. 7. SP 98/34 (10 Oct. 1733). 8. SP 98/35. 9. Add.27734, f.181.