Researching David Skinner

Before assuming the editorship of Humanities in 2007, Skinner was an assistant managing editor at The Weekly Standard, for which he frequently wrote. Prior to joining the Standard in November 1998, Skinner was managing editor of The Public Interest.

David Skinner has written for The Wall Street Journal, Slate, The Washington Times, The New Atlantis, Education Next, and other publications. He is on the usage panel for the American Heritage Dictionary. Until 2007, he edited Doublethink, a quarterly journal for young writers published by America's Future Foundation. He also was formerly associated with the Galley Slaves blog, along with fellow Weekly Standard staffers Jonathan V. Last and Victorino Matus.

Skinner's first book, The Story of Ain't: America, Its Language, and the Most Controversial Dictionary Ever Published, was published in 2012.

Skinner was born in Duffield and educated at The Leys School. From 1938 he played various games for Derbyshire second XI and for the Club and Ground until 1947, apart from in the interruption of the Second World War. Skinner made his first-class debut in one match in 1947, but in 1948 played only for the second XI.

Skinner was appointed as county captain for the 1949 season in accordance with the tradition of amateur captaincy. Skinner himself was a modest performer, though in this he was no different from the other amateurs – Gilbert Hodgkinson and Edward Gothard – who had captained an otherwise entirely professional side since the Second World War. The move was not successful, and Derbyshire, missing the all-round skills of George Pope, fell to 15th place in the County Championship. Towards the end of the season other amateurs appeared after fulfilling their schoolmastering commitments, and Skinner did not play in the last few matches of the season and never played first-class cricket again. Skinner was a right-handed batsman in the lower-middle-order and played 36 innings in 23 first-class matches with an average of 13.57 and a top score of 63. He was a right-arm off-break bowler who bowled occasionally taking 2 first-class wickets at an average of 91.

In 1950, Derbyshire registered the former Cambridge University and Nottinghamshire amateur Guy Willatt to take over as captain, and though the registration was delayed until August and then scuppered by an immediate injury to Willatt, the county preferred to operate under the temporary captaincy of Pat Vaulkhard than to renew Skinner's tenure, Vaulkhard having at least a reputation for successful hard-hitting batsmanship. Willatt finally took over in 1951.

Skinner continued to play in the Second XI Championship from 1951 until 1958.

Skinner died in Thorpe Bay, Southend-on-Sea, at the age of 77. His brother, Alan, also played first-class cricket for Derbyshire, having made his debut sixteen years before David.

Dr David Skinner is a British musicologist and choir director. He is Director of Music at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He co-founded the Cardinall's Musick and Magdala.

Skinner was educated at the University of Edinburgh and Christ Church, Oxford from where he received his DPhil in 1995: a biography of Nicholas Ludford and a critical edition of Ludford's antiphons. He has taught at the universities of Oxford, Glasgow, Cambridge and Royal Holloway College. He was a member of Christ Church Cathedral choir for six years, as an academical clerk and a lay clerk.

David is the father of singer-songwriter Robin Daniel Skinner, known as Cavetown on YouTube, where he has over 1,000,000 subscribers. Robin posts his music on Bandcamp, Spotify, iTunes, Amazon Music and so on.

He grew up in America.

With Andrew Carwood he was co-founder and artistic director of the Cardinall's Musick, and produced more than 25 recordings for the group. He has been associated with a number of award-winning projects (including two Gramophone Awards and three runners up, Diapason d'Or, Deutsche Schallplatten, and a Grammy nomination).

His latest consort choir, Alamire, was founded in 2005. With Fretwork and the Choir of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, it won the 'Recording of the Month' award in Gramophone Magazine, for February 2008. In 2011 David Skinner and Alamire commenced a ten-year 30-cd programme to explore English choral music between 1400 and the mid-17th century.

He received a 2015 Gramophone Award for Alamire's recording of The Spy's Choirbook, while their latest project, Anne Boleyn's Songbook won Australia's Limelight Award and was nominated for a BBC Music Magazine Award. Their next project is on Thomas Tallis and Henry VIII's last queen, Catherine Parr.