Felicia Skene

Felicia Mary Frances Skene (born May 23, 1821 in Aix-en-Provence , † October 6, 1899 in Oxford ) was a Scottish author, philanthropist and prison reformer. She also published under the pen names Erskine Moir , Francis Scougal, and Oxoniensis . Many of her writings appeared anonymously.

biography

Felicia Skene was the daughter of the Scottish lawyer James Skene and grew up in Scotland and France (Paris). The family, which was close to the so-called Oxford Movement within the Anglican Church, ultimately settled in Oxford.

Charitable activity

After her return from Greece (see below) to England (1845), Skene was active in charity within her parish. During the severe cholera and smallpox epidemic in 1854, she worked with the doctor Henry Acland to care for the sick together with volunteer nurses. When Florence Nightingale was hired by Sidney Herbert to lead a group of nurses in response to the drastic reports by Times correspondents William Howard Russell and Thomas Chenery about the inadequate care of sick and injured British soldiers in the Crimean War , some of these volunteer nurses were recruited and Skene helped with the difficult recruitment of suitable nurses. There was no nursing education at that time. The nurses who worked in British hospitals in the first half of the 19th century were usually former servants or widows who could not find other employment and were therefore forced to make a living from this work.

Plaque for Felicia Skene in Ofxfords St Michael's Street

In 1869 she moved into a house on St Michael Street in Oxford and began charity work in Oxford Women's Prison. Along with Elizabeth Fry, she is one of the Victorian reformers of the prison system, who particularly advocated counseling for prisoners and their care after their release, and who campaigned for a more liberal approach to prisoners. She herself met the ex-prisoners, who were usually released early in the morning, at the prison gate and offered them breakfast and a start-up aid for their new life.

In her novels she often addressed current social issues of her time. One of her most successful novels is Hidden Depths (1866), which is still recognized today for its socially critical portrayal of Victorian society. However, many of her writings are devoted to religious or edifying subjects. Between 1866 and 1873 she also published in the religious journal Good Words ; in Oxford she published the Churchman's Companion from 1862 to 1880 . Her most successful book in her lifetime, measured by sales, was her piety and devotion, The Divine Master (first published in 1852).

Religious and cultural beliefs

The Parthenon with mosque, drawn by Felicia's father James Skene

Her seven-year stay in the Kingdom of Greece , together with her parents, from 1838 to 1845 was constitutive for some of her works and in general for her worldview. During this time she developed a pronounced philhellenism , which on the other hand turned out to be a violent aversion to the Turks and Islam, but also against the Slavic Christians. "He knew only too well that / no love, no compassion ever have place in Muslim chest would," it said already in a "The Greek Slave" ( The Greek Slave ) titled poem in Skenes - much of Byron's seals inspired - The Isles of Greece is included.

Her report on life in Greece and her travels in the Ottoman Empire ( Wayfaring Sketches ) also leave nothing to be desired in terms of clarity. For them, Turkey was “a country of complete and extremely melancholy darkness”; Elsewhere she wrote about Turkey: “If we scrape off the thin gold varnish (...) then we can, I think, very simply and very briefly analyze the spectacle that inevitably presents itself to us in this country, that of nature has been so richly endowed: namely, the spectacle of a despotic and corrupt government that goes hand in hand with a repulsive faith that affects a people who, by their natural disposition, are made uniquely susceptible to evil. "

Her travelogue also stands out because she often refers to the inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire as native , "natives", which is completely unusual in European writings about the Ottoman Empire in the mid-19th century. Undoubtedly Skene used the term with a deliberately disparaging intention; this is also indicated by the fact that she also speaks of “barbarian natives”.

Skene's attitude is flanked and justified at the same time by a strongly pronounced Anglican-Christian (and Catholic-influenced) basic attitude. As can be seen from the Wayfaring Sketches , she saw herself as one of the “holy servants of a holy cause” whose task on earth was to “counter the flood of unbelief that has already set in and which it seems will soon be the whole world is buried under it. "the" spreading the gospel "( propagation of the gospel ) thought she was the first necessity in the" semi-barbaric land "( semi-barbarous country ) Turkey and the Orient in general. Their overall attitude can be read from the following passage, where Skene contrasts Western Europe and European Turkey, with a special focus on the position of women:

“How is it that this people is left in a state bordering on barbarism, in the middle of Europe, while in England, France and elsewhere we bask in the free and unobstructed light of the Gospel and, from our earliest childhood on, in the immeasurable stores of knowledge who have been filled by the united forces of countless generations for all the lessons of wisdom that most ennoble humanity (...). As we actually develop in this way in our noble achievements, there is here, very close by, a nation of barbarians among whom - if one looks at it with the greatest goodwill - the entire female segment of the population lives and dies, and to be sure, without a thought that goes beyond the mere daily satisfaction of their animal needs; They live - although endowed with an immortal soul like ours - in complete ignorance that there is such a thing as a religion, apart from the purely practical effects that the so-called Muslim system has on them, namely inasmuch as they are slaves and dying in the dust sinks as if they were animals that simply perish! "

Fonts (selection)

• 1843: The Isles of Greece and Other Poems . Edinburgh: R. Grant and Son (Skene dedicated the book to Maximilian Joseph II of Bavaria , whose brother Otto was King of Greece) ( Google )
• 1847 (anonymous): Wayfaring Sketches among the Greeks and Turks, and on the Shores of the Danube. By a Seven Years' Resident in Greece . London: Chapman & Hall ( Google )
  • Second edition 1849 ( Google )
• 1849: Use and Abuse, a Tale . London: Francis & John Rivington ( Hathitrust )
• 1849: The Inheritance of Evil: or, the Consequence of Marrying a Deceased Wife's Sister. London: Joseph Masters
• 1851: The Tutor's Ward. A novel. 2 volumes. London: Colburn and Co. (Google: Volume I - Volume II )
  • American edition in one volume 1852. New York: Harper & Brothers ( Google )
• 1852 (anonymous): The Divine Master . London: Joseph Masters ( Google )
  • Second edition 1852 ( Google )
  • Fourth edition 1857 ( Google )
  • Eleventh edition 1885
• 1853 (anonymous): S. Alban's, or, The Prisoners of Hope . London: Joseph Masters
• 1854 (anonymous): The Ministry of Consolation. A Guide to Confession for the Use of Members of the Church in England . London: Joseph Masters ( archive )
• 1865 (anonymous): Penitentiaries and Reformatories . Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas
• 1866 (anonymous): Hidden Depths . 2 volumes. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas (Google: Volume II ) (archive: Volume I - Volume II )
  • American edition in one volume 1866. Philadelphia: JB Lippincott & Co. ( Google )
• 1869: "French Preachers: A Court Preacher and Father Hyacinthe". In: Temple Bar , Volume 26 (June 1869), pp. 345-355
• 1876 ​​(anonymous): A Memoir of Alexander, Bishop of Brechin, with a Brief Notice of his Brother the Rev. George Hay Forbes . London: J. Masters and Co. ( Google )
• 1877: The Life of Alexander Lycurgus. Archbishop of the Cyclades . London: Rivingtons ( archive )
• 1883 (anonymous): The Shadow of the Holy Week . London. J. Masters and Co. ( archive )
• 1886: A Strange Inheritance . Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons
• 1887: The Lesters: a Family Record . 2 volumes. London: WH Allen and Co.
• 1888: Awakened. A Tale in Nine Chapters . London: James Clarke & Co.
• 1888: Dewdrops. Selections from Writings of the Saints . Oxford: AR Mowbray and Co.
• 1888 (as Erskine Moir): Through the Shadows, a Test of the Truth . London: Elliot Stock
  • Reissued in 1897 (as "Oxoniensis"): A Test of the Truth. London: Elliot Stock
• 1889 (as Francis Scougal): Scenes from a Silent World or Prisons and their Inmates . Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons

literature

• Andrew Sanders: Skene, Felicia Mary Frances (1821–1899). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of October 2009
• Elizabeth Lee:  Skene, Felicia Mary Frances . In: Sidney Lee (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Suppl. 1, Volume 3:  How - Woodward. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1901, pp. 347 - 348 (English).

Web links

• Online Books by Felicia Skene
• Wayfaring sketches among the Greeks and Turks , 2nd edn., Felicia Mary Frances Skene, 1849, (Chapman & Hall, London)
• Blue plaque to Felicia Skene in St Michael's Street

Single receipts

1. ^ Nancy Duin and Jenny Sutcliffe: History of Medicine , Verlag vgs, Cologne 1993, ISBN 3-8025-1267-7 , p. 79
2. ↑ Mark Bostridge: Florence Nightingale . Penguin Books, London 2009, ISBN 978-0-14-026392-3 , p. 209
3. ↑ The Isles of Greece (1843), p. 44.
4. ↑ 'a land of utter and most melancholy darkness': Wayfaring Sketches (1847), p. 132.
5. ↑ 'If we rub off the flimsy gilding (...), I think we may simply and shortly analyze the spectacle we are destined to see in this country so richly gifted by nature, as that of a despotic and corrupt government, hand in hand with a vile creed, working on a people whose natural propensities render them singularly apt for the reception of evil ': Wayfaring Sketches (1847), p. 249 f.
6. ↑ Wayfaring Sketches (1847), p. 255.
7. ↑ 'And it is time that holy servants of a holy cause should walk the earth with scrutinizing gaze and steady purpose to stem the tide of unbelief that has set in, and as it would seem, shall soon overwhelm it all together': Wayfaring Sketches (1847), p. 171.
8. ↑ Wayfaring Sketches (1847), p. 234.
9. ↑ 'How comes it that these people are left in a state bordering on barbarism, in Europe itself, whilst we in England, France, and elsewhere, are basking in the free and unobstructed light of the gospel, and drawing, from our very infancy , on the vast store houses of learning which the labor of accumulated ages have combined to fill, for all those lessons of wisdom, which most ennoble humanity (...). Whilst we are thus refining, as it were, on our very refinements, here is, hard by, a nation of barbarians, of whom, taking them in the most favorable view, the whole of the female part of the population live and die, without one thought beyond the mere daily supply of their animal wants; live – albeit each one has a soul immortal as our own – in total ignorance that there is such a thing as religion, except in the practical bearing of the Muslim system, so called, on themselves, inasmuch as they are slaves, and die, going down to the dust, like the very beasts that perish! ': Wayfaring Sketches (1847), p. 258.