Walter William Skeat

Walter William Skeat
Born	1866
Died	1953
Residence	2 Salisbury Villas, Cambridge [1900] 9 Queen Square, WC [1902] Romeland Cottage, St Albans [1903] Morden, Rustington, near Littlehampton [1913] Sunnyside, Church Crescent, St Albans [1915]
Occupation	anthropologist colonial servant
Society Membership membership ordinary fellow elected_AI 1900.11.27 societies Folklore Society British Academy

Notes

Office Notes

AI Council 1904 Member
AI Council 1905 Member
AI Council 1906 Member
RAI Council 1908 Member
RAI Council 1909 Member
RAI Council 1910 Member
RAI Council 1911 Member
RAI Council 1912-13 Member
RAI Council 1913 Member
RAI Council 1914 Member
RAI Council 1916 Member
RAI Council 1917 Member
RAI Council 1918 Member
RAI Council 1923 Member
RAI Council 1924 Member
RAI Council 1925 Member

House Notes

1900.11.13 nominated

Notes From Elsewhere

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

His father, also Walter William, Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Cambridge, has ODNB entry. Joined Malay Civil Service 1891. Skeat Expedition to Malay Peninsula 1900. Numerous publications; best known for Malay Magic (1900).

Publications

External Publications

Malay magic : being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay Peninsula (1900) [1] [2] [3] Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula (1906) The past at our doors : or, The old in the new around us /by Walter W. Skeat (1913)

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