author
John Skinner
1772–1839
An English clergyman with a restless curiosity, he left behind vivid journals, travel writing, and antiquarian studies that open a window onto rural life in the early 1800s. His work blends the eye of a parish rector with the habits of an early archaeologist.
1 Audiobook
Ten Days' Tour through the Isle of Anglesea, December, 1802
by John Skinner
About the author
Born in 1772, he was an English clergyman who became rector of Camerton in Somerset and is remembered as an antiquary and early archaeologist. He worked mainly around Bath and the villages of northern Somerset, combining parish duties with close observation of local history, monuments, and everyday life.
His surviving writings helped preserve that world in unusual detail. They include travel writing such as Ten Days' Tour through the Isle of Anglesea, December, 1802, as well as journals later published as Journal of a Somerset Rector, 1803–1834. He also wrote Annals of Scottish Episcopacy, showing the range of his historical interests.
What makes him especially interesting now is the mix of voices in his work: part country rector, part diarist, part investigator of the past. He died in 1839, but his journals and antiquarian notes still give readers a lively, sometimes deeply personal picture of early nineteenth-century Britain.