Theodore Cressy Skeat
Theodore Cressy Skeat was a British academic and librarian at the British Museum, where he worked as Assistant Keeper, Deputy Keeper, and Keeper of Manuscripts and Egerton Librarian.
He was the grandson of noted philologist Walter William Skeat.
Skeat was educated at Whitgift School, Croydon and Christ's College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1929 with a second-class BA in the Classical Tripos. Following a further short spell as a student at the British School at Athens, an academic institute specialising in archaeology and classical studies, he was recruited by the British Museum in 1931.
Skeat's work coincided with two important acquisitions by the British Museum Trustees: the Codex Sinaiticus and the apocryphal Gospel Egerton 2 Papyrus. He made a name for himself with important contributions to palaeography, papyrology and codicology, particularly in relation to these two acquisitions.
Skeat was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1963, but resigned in 1979, in protest against its decision not to expel Anthony Blunt after the latter was exposed as a former Soviet spy.
Obituaries
- J. Keith Elliott, Theodore Cressy Skeat, TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism, 2003.
- J. Keith Elliott, Obituary: T. C. Skeat, The Independent, July 8, 2003.
- Dorothy J. Thompson, In memoriam Theodore Cressy SKEAT, 2004.
Select bibliography
- H. I. Bell, and T. C. Skeat, Fragments of an Unknown Gospel and other early Christian papyri, London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1935.
- H. J. M. Milne, and T. C. Skeat, Scribes and Correctors of the Codex Sinaiticus, London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1938.
- C. H. Roberts, and T. C. Skeat, The Birth of the Codex, Oxford University Press, New York – Cambridge 1983.
- T. C. Skeat, The collected Biblical writings of T. C. Skeat, ed. J. K. Elliott, Supplements to Novum Testamentum 113, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004.