Skeel , Caroline , 1872-1951 , historian

SKEEL , CAROLINE ANNE JAMES ( 1872 - 1951 ) was born on the 9 Feb. 1872 in She was the sixth of the seven children of William James Skeel (1822 - 1899) and Anne James (1831 - 1895). Her father, the son of Henry Skeel (d. 1847 ), a farmer, was born at Castle Hill in the parish of Haycastle, Pembrokeshire, and became a successful London merchant with offices in Finsbury Chambers in the city and a director of the South Australian Land Mortgage and Agency Co. Ltd . Her mother was a first cousin of her husband; the daughter of Thomas and Martha James of Clarbeston, Pembrokeshire.

Educated at Notting Hill High School (1887-90), she attended Girton College, Cambridge (1891-95). She was a St. Dunstan's Exhibitioner and took a double first in classics in 1894 and then took a first in the historical tripos, in 1895. Skeel joined Westfield in 1896 as a visiting lecturer in classics, and in 1901 enrolled as a postgraduate student at the London School of receiving the London DLitt in 1903. The onset in 1907 of severe and lasting depression removed Skeel temporarily from the academic scene, to which she eventually returned on her reappointment to Westfield in 1911.She was promoted in 1919 to a university readership and in 1925; she was advanced to a professorship, the first to be held at Westfield. But within a year symptoms of depression reappeared and in 1929 she took early retirement.

She lived quietly in Hendon until her death, following a stroke on 25 February 1951. She had inherited the large fortunes left by her father and brother, the total of which amounted at her death to some £270,000 (gross). She bequeathed the bulk of it to Westfield, already the beneficiary of gifts made anonymously during her lifetime. After her death it was revealed that she had anonymously given away in her lifetime about £30,000 to poor families and charities.