Peter and Peter Paul Skeolan

Peter Skoelan the son of Stephen Skoelan was born in Ireland in 1815. During his early career he worked as an itinerant miniature portrait painter and profilist, possibly as early as the 1830s. The 1841 census shows us that he was working in Leeds, his stated occupation was painter, aged 25. He was lodging with Thomas Lacy, a Tailor. By this time he had married and had a son and daughter. His wife was Margaret Hall from Whitehaven, Cumberland and they married in 1840. His son and daughter were born a few years earlier. His son Peter Paul Skeolan was born in 1837 when the family were still in Ireland and his daughter Mary Jane was born in Liverpool in 1839, so it may well be that Margaret Hall was not the mother of the children or there could be some other explanation.

By the time the 1851 census came around Peter Snr was working in Liverpool where he is described as a miniature painter and profilist. Over the years he travelled to many other places including Leeds, Halifax, Bradford, Huddersfield, ¹ Southport, ² Liverpool, ³ Scarborough ⁴ and Manchester where he worked most probably on a seasonal basis for at least twelve years. ⁵

Pair of Silhouettes by Skeolan, also a painting signed and dated 1845 by Skeolan, shown here courtesy of Wigs on the Green .

More information on Peter Skeolan's silhouettes can be found at Profiles of the Past.

The portrait on the right is that of William Macready (1793-1873), a well known Shakespearean actor, this is an engraving by D J Pound from a photograph by Skeolan, Cheltenham.

The Barons suicide.

Peter Paul's sister Mary Jane Skeolan b 1839 in Liverpool (although she was baptised in Dublin), would be embroiled in the rather dramatic and tragic suicide in 1859 of so called Baron De Chastellain (real name Phillibert De Chastellain) supposedly of Swiss origin who fell madly in love with her when she was just nineteen. The Baron was prevented from continuing the relationship by her father Peter Skeolan who wanted to protect his daughter, it was said that the Barons affairs were 'unsettled', meaning that he didn't have the financial means to support her. In his own words the Baron said 'I am finished'. As a result of this rather depressing situation the Baron shot himself and whether intentionally or not this resulted in his death . This must have been a very traumatic incident for the Skeolan family.

The 1861 census shows Mary Jane staying with her father in Cheltenham but her brother Peter Paul had moved to Leeds and was staying with the Hutchinsons in Cookridge Street. Mary Jane would eventually marry John William Tattersall the son of Kirkstall Maltster William Tattersall. Both William Tattersall and his wife Eliza Wood had their portraits taken by Peter Paul Skeolan and these are shown here along with a portrait of John William Tattersall and the cover of the family album. The album was most probably given to Eliza Jane Tattersall, the sister of John William, on her 21st birthday, 7th October 1865. Thanks to the family for permission to show these here.

Peter was producing silhouettes and miniature painted portraits but inevitably the demand for these declined as the popularity of photographic portraits grew. In 1854, possibly 1853, he began producing Daguerreotype miniatures ⁶ and had changed the name of his studio referring to it as the Manchester Photographic Gallery. During 1856 through to 1857 he worked from St Nicholas Street and then Huntriss Row in Scarborough at the very same time that Oliver Sarony was building his magnificent photographic studio and gallery, and then he made the move to Cheltenham in early 1858 where he settled and established a permanent photographic studio, ⁷ he stayed there until 1869 and then moved back to Leeds where he appears in the 1871 census ⁸ A second photographic studio had been opened in Leeds in the early 1860s ⁹ and it would appear that the Cheltenham and the Leeds studio were operating at the same time. In fact when the Leeds studio opened it was described as a branch. It is most likely that Peter Paul now aged 24 (in 1861) was running the Leeds studio with his father having some interest in it, possibly funding the operation. There is some evidence to suggest that this was the case.

Soon after the death of his first wife Ellen P P married Laura Des Forges who was ten years younger than him, she was the daughter of Charles des Forges a wholesale grocer and merchant from Hull. The 1871 census shows P P staying with the Des Forges family in Hull prior to his marriage to Laura. It is a strange coincidence that some years prior to starting this research I acquired an album belonging to the Des Forges/Chapman family, not this immediate family, but a close relation.

Two examples of Carte De Visite portraits from P P Skeolan's Harrogate studio are shown here. What a great shame it is that the beauty of the silhouettes were replaced by these very ordinary looking mass produced carte de visites, but it could very well be that the silhouettes were only the work of his father and P P never really had the skills to produce such work, after all it was really before his time. Both Peter Skeolan and his son promoted their business by referring to themselves as miniature painters and this is a service they obviously offered and may have well been something they were keen to promote in order to differentiate themselves from their competitors who in many cases were just every day photographers with little skill or artistic merit.

Peter Paul to differentiate himself from his father and perhaps make his own mark on the business liked to be referred to as P P Skeolan. The first advertisement referring to P P Skeolan appears in the Leeds Intelligencer 19th Jan 1861 when a 'branch' of the business is opened at 14, Commercial Street, Leeds. P P would have been 24 years of age, he would later go on to open a second branch in Harrogate and would marry three times.

By his first wife Ellen Wilson (1839-1870) he had a son Francis, his only child, Francis signed up in 1877 for four years to serve an apprenticeship in the merchant navy, under John Walsh of Liverpool. During quite possibly his first trip which was to Australia he deserted when the ship arrived in Sidney. ¹⁰It is not known what happened to him after the point until 1881 when he appears in the census living in Leeds.

The Leeds and Harrogate Studios

One of Peter Paul Skeolan's most well known sitters was Baroness Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts. Both the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert museum have copies of the portraits by Skeolan. When Miss Angela Burdett-Coutts inherited her fortune at the age of just twenty three she became the wealthiest woman in England. She was a remarkable lady and a very generous one giving vast amounts of money to good causes particularly to the poor and needy. She became friends with Dickens who dedicated his novel Martin Chuzzlewit to her. King Edward VII is reported to have said that after his mother Queen Victoria that Miss Burdett-Coutts was the most remarkable women in the Kingdom. ¹² She came to Harrogate to take the waters in 1868 ¹³ and that is when Skeolan had chance to take her portrait. She was so pleased with it that she gave permission for an engraving to be produced.

Baroness Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts by Peter Paul Skeolan, albumen print 1868

Death of Peter Skeolan

Peter Skeolan had continued to run the studio in Cheltenham but by 1871 he had returned to Leeds. In December 1871 he passed away and shortly afterwards his widow Margaret put up for sale his belongings. An auction was held and an advertisement was placed in the Leeds Mercury, 3rd February 1872, as follows.

To Photographers and Others

Messrs Hepper and Sons are instructed by the widow of Mr P Skeolan Photographic Artist of Cheltenham and Leeds (lately deceased) to sell by auction in their rooms, East Parade Leeds on Wednesday February 7th commencement at 11 o'clock.

The Photographic Materials, Apparatus, Pictures and Effects

comprising Lenses by Grubb, Lerebours, Harvey and Reynolds, Atkinson &c rolling machines, presses, easels, morocco cases, albuminised paper, mounts, gilded frames, backgrounds, headrests, studio furniture, chemicals, a considerable number of water colour drawings, oil paintings, miniatures, highly finished chalk drawings, and other usual stock and appliances connected with the photographic business.

Catalogues may be had on the 9th February and the property viewed on the sale morning.

This leaves a number of questions unanswered. Were these the contents of both Cheltenham and Leeds studios. Had P P decided to concentrate on Harrogate and was the Leeds studio funded by Peter Skeolan. Clearly the ownership of the materials etc had passed to his widow but why had these not been passed down to Peter Skeolan's only son who was in the business or is it that they were superfluous to P P's needs. It is noticeable that no cameras were included in this list so these may have been sold separately or passed to P P.

Studio Timeline

This has been compiled mainly from press reports and advertising. As more information comes to light it will be added.

Tragedy was never far away.

During the early 1880s P P's health took a turn for the worse and he left Harrogate selling his furniture and moved to Southampton and afterwards to London, Brighton and Southport. Details of this are revealed in a court case in January 1885. ¹¹ Some items had been left in Harrogate and when P P returned presumably to recover these he found that the person that he had left them with had sold some of them, the excuse being that they did not know the whereabouts of Skeolan and thought he would never return.

Whilst in Southampton in August 1880 his reputation was tarnished when he was arrested for being drunk and incapable. He had been seen with a revolver (Was this the De Chastellain revolver?) and it was said that he had the intention of taking his own life. ¹⁴He was clearly in a distressed state which may have well been due to his health at the time or other factors unknown.

Whilst in London he committed himself to the Shadwell Road Workhouse, Islington for just one week in January 1883. ¹⁵ Soon after he returned to Yorkshire where he took up a position with Reginald Spurr managing his studio in Ramsden Street, Huddersfield. ¹⁶

Sadly Peter Paul Skeolan ended his days in 1889 when he died from the effects of taking laudanum.¹⁷ The verdict of the inquest was that he had committed suicide and that the laudanum had effected him more than it might have done because he had a heart condition. A few days earlier he had bought half an ounce of laudanum from the shop of Mr Ball, Lord Street, Southport saying that he was suffering from neuralgia.

1 Leeds mercury 24th Dec 1847

2 Evidence from a label on the back of one of his works.

3 Liverpool Mercury 12th Dec 1851

4 Scarborough gazette 1856

5 Manchester courier 22nd Oct 1853

6 Manchester times 26th Aug 1854

7 Cheltenham Chronicle 6th April 1858

8 Leeds 1871 Census

9 Leeds Intelligencer 26th January 1861

10 UK Apprentices indentured in the Merchant Navy 1824-1910 (Available through Ancestry)

11 Knaresborough Post 17th June 1885

12 The Victorianist blogspot

13 Halifax Courier 15th August 1868

14 Hampshire Advertiser 28th Aug 1880

15 Shadwell Road, Islington Workhouse records 1883

16 Huddersfield Chronicle, 17th Nov 1883

17 Lancaster Gazette 16th Oct 1889

18 Liverpool Mercury 7th Feb 1859