Walter William Skeat (anthropologist)

This article is about Walter William Skeat the younger, anthropologist. For his father, also named Walter William Skeat, a prominent philologist and authority on Geoffrey Chaucer, see Walter William Skeat.

Walter William Skeat ( 14 October 1866 – 24 July 1953) was an English anthropologist. He made a name for himself mainly with his pioneering investigations into, and writings on, the ethnography of the Malay Peninsula.

Early life

Skeat was born in Cambridge in England. He was the son of Walter William Skeat the elder, Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Cambridge.[1]

Skeat the younger attended Highgate School from 1879 to 1885 and won a scholarship to Christ's College, Cambridge where he studied classics and received an MA degree in 1891.[2] He then entered the Straits Settlements civil service in Selangor, a state in what is now Malaysia.

Career

Soon he began to study the way of life of both the urbanised Malays near the coast and the aborigines dwelling inland. He prepared his first book in the years leading up to 1899, when he began to mount expeditions to the interior to study the anthropology and ethnography of Malays in areas beyond any marked European influence. His friend and associate Charles Otto Blagden saw the book through publication; it dealt with Malay magic and appeared in 1900.[3]

In association with Blagden, Skeat subsequently produced his major work, Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula in 1906.[4]

Through his travels into the interior he became too seriously ill to remain in the British Colonial Service, so he retired to London. In 1914 he became a lecturer at the British Museum.

Death

Skeat retired in 1932 and died in London on 24 July 1953.[5]

Works

References

  1. ↑ Skeat, Walter William. The Past at Our Doors (introductory Author's note) Macmillan London 1913. Available for download at: https://archive.org/details/pastatourdoorsor00skeauoft
  2. ↑ Ed. Boreham, J.Y. Highgate School Register 1838-1938 (4th ed.). p. 98.
  3. ↑ Skeat, Walter William. Malay Magic; introd. by Blagden, Charles Otto. London: Macmillan, 1900. Available for download at: https://archive.org/details/malaymagicbeing00blaggoog
  4. ↑ Skeat, Walter William and Blagden, Charles Otto. Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula. London: Macmillan, 1906. Available for download at: https://archive.org/details/paganracesofmala02skea
  5. ↑ Skeat, Walter William. Encyclopædia Britannica 2007 Ultimate Reference Suite. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2012
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/20/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.