Thomas Skinner (16 June 1819 – 6 December 1881) was an etcher, inventor and amateur oil-painter in Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. During the 1840s he invented a method by which the mass production of etched designs on steel blades could be facilitated by means of paper transfers. The British and American patents brought him a good income, but he devoted his life to developing the method. After he was widowed he was killed by arsenic poisoning at the hands of his housekeeper Kate Dover.
Background
Thomas Skinner's father was etcher and cutler Thomas Skinner senior, who worked for Joseph Rodgers & Sons of Sheffield. Thomas junior was born in Sheffield on 16 June 1819. By 1841 at the age of 22 he was an ornamenter, living in Carver Street, Sheffield, with his widowed mother Mary who kept a lodging house. He had three sisters: Ann, Matilda (born ca. 1820) and Eliza (born ca. 1830). Skinner's wife was Melinda or Mellind Mills, also known as Mellond (1821–1876), daughter of grinder Samuel Mills, who was born and died in Ecclesall, Sheffield. They married on 1 October 1839 in the same town. He moved around a lot: in 1851 he was at West Street, and in 1857 he was at Regent Terrace, where he and his wife suffered a burglary. Charles Rushby was remanded and committed to Sessions, with breaking and entering, ransacking drawers and boxes, and stealing "a silver-plated salver, jug, mug, beaker, three egg cups, a spoon, together with a pair of boots". At that point, Skinner was described as a silver plater. By 1861 he was describing himself as an engraver on copper and living at 29 Charlotte Street, St George's, Sheffield, with Melinda and their son Clifford (Ecclesall 1855 – Poplar, London 1924). Mellond was buried on 28 November 1876 at All Saints Church, Ecclesall. At some point around the 1870s, Skinner lived at Upper Gell Street Sheffield. Something of Skinner's character may be glimpsed from the court case of December 1856, in which the German silversmith Frederick Allen was charged with giving Skinner "a severe black eye". However there had previously been "unpleasantness" between Skinner and Allen, who was under notice to quit. On the day of the alleged assault, Allen refused to follow orders, and took it upon himself to pick out teapot handles for use at work without asking permission. Skinner called him a "scoundrel" and pushed him, and "a scuffle and fight ensued." The magistrates "took the view that Skinner had commenced the assault ... and dismissed the case". Later, as a widower, Skinner was very familiar with his servants; for example he chaffed Emma Bolsover "about not being so good-looking as her sister". Some witnesses said he was also a drunkard later in life, although his sister Ann Holmes said that he was not.
Skinner was nevertheless described by a friend as: "A man of superior intellectual ability; had a very fine nervous organisation; and was extremely sensitive to all kinds of impressions. He was a kind, genial, sympathetic man, with a very strong love nature – much too strong in fact; a man of strong temper and great excitability. He possessed enormously developed perceptive faculties which gave him his artistic and mechanical skill, his love for music, and fitted him for doing almost any kind of refined and delicate work. A man of good easy conversational powers, he easily gathered knowledge from other sources than books, and turned it readily to use; but he had not much thinking power, and was consequently liable to be led away by his strong feelings, and to do things which were not wise. He had very strong self-esteem, was very opinionated, and extremely sensitive to adverse criticism. This, with his fine organisation, made him very gentlemanly and refined in his manners – and he exhibited to the world the bearings of a gentleman. His business faculties were not so strongly developed, and that will probably explain why he, along with many other inventors, did not reap the full benefit of his discoveries. Those who know the deceased best will most readily concur the accuracy of this description of him ... Skinner kept regular correspondence with artists John Manasseh and James Poole, and "he could quote with extreme accuracy from almost any poet of note."
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