A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Skinner, Arthur Macgregor
SKINNER. (Commander, 1828. f-p., 21; h-p., 15.)
Arthur Macgregor Skinner, born 17 April, 1799, is son of the late Courtland Macgregor, of Belfast, a veteran officer who entered the Army at an early age and retired as Captain of the 70th Regt.; and grandson of Benj. Skinner, who was Attorney-General and Speaker of the House of Assembly in New Jersey when the war of independence broke out in America, and who thereby lost a large landed property, on which he had raised three battalions and, having headed them in person had been granted the rank and allowances of a Brigadier-General. His maternal grandfather, Capt. Macartney, R.N. (whose son, Jas. Macartney, was afterwards lost with Sir Hyde Parker in the Cato 50), was killed in command of the Princess Amelia 80, in the action off the Doggerbank, 5 Aug. 1781. One of his uncles, J. P. Skinner, was a Major-General in the Army; and another, John Skinner, a Commander, R.N. Most of his family have died in the service of their country. This officer entered the Navy, 9 June, 1811, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Hannibal 74, Capt. Wm. King, bearing the flag off the Texel of the late Sir Philip Chas. Durham; with whom (deducting a short time passed in April, 1812, on board the Royal William at Spithead) he continued employed in the Christian VII. 80, and Bulwark and Venerable 74’s, until transferred, in July, 1814, to the Barrosa 36, Capt. Wm. M‘Culloch. He was stationed, in the Bulwark, in Basque Roads; and on his passage, in the Venerable, to the West Indies, be was present as Midshipman (a rating he had attained on board the Bulwark) at the capture, with trifling loss on the part of the British, of the French 40-gun frigates Iphigénie and Alcmène, which surrendered (the former after considerable resistance) on 16 and 20 Jan. 1814. On leaving the Barrosa, in which ship he had assisted at the capture of five American schooners and one slaver, he went back, in Jan. 1815, to the Venerable. He returned to England shortly afterwards in the Pique 36, Capt. Hon. Anthony Maitland, and on his arrival in the ensuing April was paid off. In Dec. of the same year he again joined the Pique, still commanded by Capt. Maitland; with whom he removed, early in 1816, to the Glasgow 50. In that ship, part of the force engaged at the bombardment of Algiers, he served in the Mediterranean, with the intermission of a year (between Oct. 1816 and Oct. 1817) until Oct. 1820. He was then (he had passed his examination 2 June, 1819) received on board the Rochfort 80, flag-ship of Sir Graham Moore, but came home in Feb. 1821 in the Glasgow, and was afterwards, from the following April until March, 1824, when he invalided, employed on the Home and East India stations in the Bulwark 74, bearing the flag of Sir John Gore and Sir Benj. Hallowell, Royal Sovereign yacht, Capts. Sir Edw. W. C. K. Owen and Sir Chas. Adam, Bulwark again, and Liffey 50, Commodore Chas. Grant. Of the latter ship, which he joined in Nov. 1821, he was confirmed a Lieutenant, nearly eight months after he had been ordered to act as such, 22 Oct. 1823. He served subsequently from 24 Oct. 1826 until advanced to his present rank, 9 Sept. 1828, in the Pyramus 42, Capt. Geo. Rose Sartorius; and from 7 July, 1840, until 1847, as an Inspecting-Commander in the Coast Guard.
From Dec. 1833 until June, 1840, Commander Skinner was a Police Magistrate at Belfast. While serving in 1819 in the Glasgow his arm was badly fractured by a man falling upon him from aloft. In consideration of this he was allowed, until promoted, to enjoy the out-pension of Greenwich Hospital. Agents – Messrs. Stilwell.