Chronicle Spring 2022

40 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

Born in Aix-en-Provence to an aristocratic family Felicia, or ‘Fifi’ as she was known to friends and family, was the youngest of seven children. She spent her early childhood in Paris, where her formidable education began (she was taught piano by Liszt whom she described as ‘a wild-looking, long-haired excitable man’), before the Skene family moved to Edinburgh. Here she played with the grandchildren of the exiled Charles X of France and is said to have provided great solace to Sir Walter Scott, sitting on his knee and telling him fairy tales when he faced bankruptcy and ruin during the financial crisis of 1825. In 1838, James Skene, Felicia’s father, took his family, including the 17-year-old Felicia, to Greece, seeking warmer climes due to the poor health of his wife, Jane. The Skenes undertook a Grand Tour of sorts on horseback, exploring the classical and historical sights of the country. Felicia’s fine contralto voice was trained by the maestro of the Opera and she made her first literary efforts, penning a number of poems. Her biographer, Edith Rickards, wrote, ‘Athens widened her mind, enlarged her sympathies, and prevented narrowness of view and confinement of thought.’ The family returned to the United Kingdom in 1845, splitting their time between Leamington Spa and Scotland. It was in Leamington Spa that she met Sir Thomas Chamberlain, founder of St Edward’s and vicar of St Thomas’s Church, and encouraged by him in 1849 the Skene family settled in Oxford, drawn here by the religious and intellectual life it promised. Skene’s devout faith led her to charitable work within the working-class parishes of Oxford. When cholera and smallpox epidemics broke out in 1854, Skene, at only 23, worked tirelessly to organise a nursing force under Sir Henry Acland, then the Regius Professor of Medicine and the Vice Chancellor of Oxford University. It was at this time that she became friends with Florence Nightingale and a great many of the nurses trained and recruited at this time were later deployed to the Crimea. Skene was passionate about

The Formidable Miss Skene by Chris Nathan , School Archivist, and Bonnie Robinson, Communications Manager Felicia Mary Frances Skene (1821-99) was a highly educated and influential woman – a philanthropist, prison reformer and author. Part of the High Church Oxford Movement, she was a friend to the great and the good of Victorian society – Florence Nightingale, Sir John Franklin and Edward Bouverie Pusey amongst many others. She was also involved in the relocation of St Edward’s to Summertown and Woodstock Road, the woman who turned the first sod in the onion field on which the School was to be built.