Skene was born on 23 May 1821 in
Aix-en-Provence, France, the youngest daughter of Jane Forbes, daughter of
Sir William Forbes, sixth baronet of Pitsligo and
James Skene of
Rubislaw. Moving with her family to
Edinburgh, Scotland, as a child, she played with the children of the exiled
King Charles X of France at
Holyrood Palace. Her father was a great friend of
Sir Walter Scott, and it is said that as a child Skene would sit on the novelist's knee and tell him
fairy tales. As a girl, she was the guest of
Stratford Canning at the embassy at
Constantinople; and later was the friend of, among others,
Florence Nightingale,
Sir John Franklin,
E. B. Pusey,
Walter Savage Landor and
William Edmondstoune Aytoun. In 1838, the family moved to
Greece on account of her mother's health. Her father built a villa near
Athens, in which they lived for some time. They returned to England in 1845, and lived first at
Leamington and later in
Oxford. Skene was an accomplished woman and devoted to good works. When, in 1854,
cholera broke out at Oxford, she took part, under
Sir Henry Acland, in organising a band of nurses. Some of them were sent afterwards to the
Crimea, and during the war Skene remained in constant correspondence with Florence Nightingale. She took much interest in rescue work in Oxford, working with
prostitutes and tramps, and was one of the first "lady visitors" appointed by the
Home Office to visit the prison. Some of her experiences were told in a series of articles in ''
Blackwood's Magazine, published in book form in 1889, and entitled Scenes from a Silent World''. Her earliest published work was
Isles of Greece, and other Poems, which appeared in 1843. A devotional work,
The Divine Master, was published in 1852 and memoirs of her cousin
Alexander Penrose Forbes, bishop of Brechin, and of
Alexandros Lykourgos, archbishop of the Cyclades, in 1876 and 1877 respectively. In 1866, she published anonymously a book called
Hidden Depths. It was republished with her name and an introduction by Mr. W. Shepherd Allen in 1886. Though to all appearance a novel, the author states that it is not a work of fiction in the ordinary acceptation of the term, as she herself witnessed many of the scenes described. She was a constant contributor to the magazines, and edited the ''Churchman's Companion'', 1862–80. She died at 34
St Michael's Street, Oxford, on 6 October 1899, and was buried in St Thomas's churchyard, Oxford. A
blue plaque was installed on the house on 2 July 2002 by the
Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board. ==Selected publications==