Chronicle Spring 2022

41 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

tackling the problems of prostitution and homelessness in the city. She was remarkably fearless, unjudgemental and practical – her unmarried status and self-sufficiency as a writer spared her the need to be a delicate Victorian woman. She published accounts of her experiences in magazines and books and used the income from her writing to finance further philanthropic work. After many visits to Oxford’s city gaol on Gloucester Green, where she played the harmonium and organ in the chapel, she became one of the first Home Office-appointed ‘lady visitors’ for prisoners and campaigned for prison reform, advocating rehabilitation instead of draconian punishment. She was known always to be at the gates of the gaol when female prisoners were released, taking them back to her home for breakfast and finding them gainful employment. Miss Skene became known as a living saint of Oxford, and was often to be seen walking around the city with her Skye terrier, ‘Tatters’, and a pair of free-roaming parrots, a gift from Sir Henry Acland. Her connection with Algernon Simeon and St Edward’s came in 1870 when her home was located directly opposite the entrance to the St Edward’s playground. Simeon, at her request, gave her the ‘prettiest kitten’ from the latest brood from the school cat. From this point onwards, they were inseparable despite an age difference of some 25 years: ‘To Miss Skene, Simeon poured out his heart and tribulations. In return Miss Skene gave him counsel and asylum from the worries that beset him’ (Desmond Hill in St Edward’s First History, 1962 ). Skene, despite her already very busy life, threw herself behind Simeon’s efforts to find and build a new school and there is no doubt that she brought influential friends of her own to support Simeon’s efforts in the early days. ‘What St Edward’s owes to her never has been, and never will be, known’ (Beatrice Simeon in A Short Memoir of Algernon Barrington Simeon, 1929 ). Just how close the personal relationship was between Skene and Simeon has been alluded to by the authors of the two

The Cricket XI pose behind the dilapidated Mackworth Hall in 1869

Simeon with Felicia Skene c.1875