A portrait, by Gainsborough, was bequeathed in 1832 to Lincoln's Inn by Francis Burton, K.C.; a replica hangs in the hall of Christ Church, Oxford. A letter written by Skynner to Thomas James Mathias, from Bath, and dated 28 Feb. 1799, is among the Add. MSS. in the British Museum (22976, f. 208).
[A few Memorials of the Right Rev. Robert Skinner, bishop of Worcester, 1866, pp. 53–7; Woolrych's Lives of Eminent Serjeants-at-Law of the English Bar, 1869, ii. 530–6; Foss's Judges of England, 1864, viii. 368–9; Wood's History and Antiquities of the Colleges and Halls in the University of Oxford, 1786, App. p. 294; Gent. Mag. 1797 ii. 1075, 1805, ii. 1176, 1820 i. 107, 1821 ii. 189, 1832 ii. 572; Annual Register, 1805, p. 512; Alumni Westmon. 1852, pp. 251, 318, 326, 547, 556; Alumni Oxonienses, 1715–1886, p. 1305; Lincoln's Inn Registers; Collins's Peerage, 1812, v. 718; Townsend's Calendar of Knights, 1828, p. 54; Notes and Queries, 8th ser. ix. 227; Official Return of Lists of Members of Parliament, ii. 141, 154; Haydn's Book of Dignities, 1890.]
SKYNNER, LANCELOT (1766?–1799), captain in the navy, eldest son of John Skynner, B.D. (1725–1805), rector of Easton in Northamptonshire, and presumably nephew of Captain Lancelot Skynner—who, in command of the Bideford frigate, was killed in action with the French frigate Malicieuse, on 4 April 1760—entered the navy under the patronage of Captain John Ford on board the Brilliant in October 1779. He afterwards served in the Nymph on the East India station, and in the Pégase and Thisbe on the home station. He passed his examination on 3 Oct. 1787, being then, by his certificate, ‘more than 21.’ On 12 Nov. 1790 he was promoted to be lieutenant of the Cygnet, from which, in the following July, he was discharged to half-pay. In February 1793 he was appointed to the Aimable, in February 1794 to the Theseus, and in July to the Boyne, flagship of Sir John Jervis [q. v.] (afterwards Earl of St. Vincent) in the West Indies. On 1 Nov. 1794 he was promoted to the command of the Zebra sloop, and, remaining in the West Indies, was posted on 16 Sept. to the Pique, from which he was, within a few weeks, moved to the Beaulieu of forty guns, one of the squadron which in April–May 1796 reduced the island of Saint Lucia. In the summer of 1799 he was appointed to the 32-gun frigate Lutine, attached to the fleet in the North Sea, and in her sailed from Yarmouth for the Texel on 9 Oct. with several passengers and treasure, stated to amount to six hundred thousand dollars, belonging to various ‘commercial houses in Hamburg.’ The same night, in a heavy gale from the N.N.W., with a strong lee-tide, she was driven on shore and utterly lost. Skynner and the whole of the crew, except one, perished. At different times attempts have been made by private speculators to recover the treasure, but without any success.
[Lists, pay-books, &c., in the Public Record Office; James's Naval Hist. ed. 1860, i. 410, ii. 474; Gent. Mag. 1799, ii. 988, 994.]
SLACK, HENRY JAMES (1818–1896), author, the son of Joseph Slack, a prosperous cloth merchant, was born in London on 23 Oct. 1818, and educated at North End, Hampstead. He exchanged a business life for journalism in 1846, and worked upon the ‘North Devon Journal’ and other provincial papers until, in 1852, he became proprietor and editor of the ‘Atlas.’ He also wrote much for the ‘Weekly Times,’ under the signature ‘Little John.’ From 1862 he edited the ‘Intellectual Observer,’ a development of a journal called ‘Recreative Science,’ founded in 1859. From 1868 to 1871 this was continued as ‘The Student.’ Meanwhile, in 1850, Slack published ‘The Ministry of the Beautiful’ (London, 8vo), a dialogue upon æsthetic subjects, and in 1860 an optimistic treatise upon ‘The Philosophy of Progress in Human Affairs.’ The ideas which he advocated through life both by precept and example were those of advanced liberalism. Such causes as that of anti-slavery, the abolition of the paper duties, and the higher education of women had in him a strenuous ally; he was a Cobdenite, a forward member of the national education league, and a warm friend of Kossuth and Mazzini. When specially moved, as in his defence of Orsini at Exeter Hall in 1856, Slack was an eloquent speaker. But the propaganda with which he was most closely identified were those of the Sunday League. He was president of the league in 1879, and inaugurated the popular lectures for Sunday evenings. He was no less zealous in the cause of the Sunday opening of museums and picture-galleries, to promote which the Sunday Society was formed in 1875.
In his leisure hours Slack was an ardent microscopist, and he was successively secretary and, in 1878, president of the Royal Microscopical Society. At odd moments during 1860 he composed ‘The Marvels of Pond Life,’ an attractive and essentially popular introduction to microscopical study (London, 1861, 8vo; 3rd edit. illustrated, 1878). Most of the ponds to which he refers
