Bertha Marian Skeat

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Bertha Marian Skeat
Born30 December 1861
Dereham
Died2 December 1948 (1948-12-03) (aged 86)
Sedbergh
NationalityUnited Kingdom
EducationNewnham College
University of Zurich
Known forfounder of school
Parent(s)Bertha Clara and Walter William Skeat

Bertha Marian Skeat or Bertha Skeat (30 December 1861 – 2 December 1948) was a British writer and schoolmistress.

Life[]

Skeat was born in East Dereham in 1861. She was the first child of Bertha Clara and Walter William Skeat. She had five siblings including the anthropologist Walter William Skeat.[1] Her father was a philologist. She was a student at Newnham College in Cambridge from 1882 to 1886 where she achieved a first-class examination result in medieval and modern languages.[2]

She then obtained a Cambridge teacher's certificate and a doctorate at the University of Zürich. In 1890 she started teaching as a lecturer at the Cambridge Teaching College for Women. In 1899 she co-founded and became the principal of Baliol School for Girls in Sedbergh. She wrote plays and poems as well as academic textbooks. Her linguistic skills enabled her to create a list of modern English words that contained Anglo-French vowel sounds which was published by the English Dialect Society in 1884.[1] She also wrote a primer and two anthologies for use in teaching English. The school she founded closed in 1932.[2]

Skeat died in Sedbergh unmarried on 2 December 1948.[2] She was buried with her mother and father.[3]

Works[]

  • The Lamentations of Mary Magdalene – a play (1897)
  • Atalanta's Race – a play (1907)
  • The Crucifixion of Mary, and other Poems (1924)
  • Sedbergh Dreams (1930)[4]


References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b British Academy (2002). Interpreters of Early Medieval Britain. British Academy. p. 38. ISBN 978-0-19-726277-1.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c Kenneth Sisam, 'Skeat, Walter William (1835–1912)', rev. Charlotte Brewer, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2008 accessed 23 Feb 2017
  3. ^ "Skeat, Bertha Marian (1861–1948), schoolmistress". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/58483. Retrieved 15 November 2020.
  4. ^ Bertha Marian Skeat (1930). Sedbergh Dreams. Baliol School for Girls.
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