Francis Skeat

Francis Walter Skeat (3 December 1909 – 31 August 2000) was an English glass painter who created over 400 stained glass windows in churches and cathedrals, both in England and overseas. Skeat was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of the British Society of Master Glass Painters, and a member of the Art Workers Guild.

Skeat was born in St Albans in Hertfordshire; his mother Theodora had an embroidery studio in Chester and his grandfather was Walter William Skeat, the etymologist. Skeat was educated at Lyndale School, St Albans and Whitgift School, Croydon. At the age of eighteen, he was apprenticed to Harry Scott Bridgwater who was a leading mezzotint engraver. He was a follower of Sir John Ninian Comper; after exhibiting at the Paris salon in 1932, he returned to St Albans in 1933 and the following year he became a pupil of Christopher Webb, who had a studio in St Albans and encouraged him to work in stained glass. He later worked for A.R. Mowbray and Co. in Oxford and for J. Wippell and Co. of Exeter; he also designed glass for the firm of Barton, Kinder and Alderson.

In 1934 he presented two glass panels to the Church of St John in Old London Road, St Albans, where he was a parishioner. These panels, featuring the Good Shepherd and St John the Baptist, were his first church windows. In 1955 St John's was demolished and the panels were moved to St Peter's. In 1937 he married Birgit Ann Mari Lindquist from Gothenburg, Sweden, where he lived until the end of the Second World War. After the war, he opened his first studio at 7a Market Place, St Albans, before moving his studio to Cross Lane, Harpenden. His first major commission was for the largest window in the southern hemisphere, for the south transept of St George's Cathedral, Cape Town, South Africa. The rose window was installed in 1957, and was designed by Frank Spears.

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