George Edward Mac Kenzie Skues - Early Life

Early Life

Skues was born on 13 August 1858 in St. Johns, Newfoundland and was the eldest child of William MacKenzie Skues, at the time surgeon to the Newfoundland Companies. His mother's maiden name was Margaret Ayre. At the age of 3, his parents returned to Britain en route to work in India. He was left with and raised by his paternal grandparents in Aberdeen, Scotland, Langford and Wrington in Somerset. In 1872 he won a scholarship to Winchester, and left the school in 1877. It was at Winchester that Skues was introduced to fly fishing when, in 1874, he bought some hooks in Hammond's to catch minnows. Hammond's, an angling shop in Winchester, introduced Skues to fly fishing and his first attempt was made using an eleven-foot rod, a silk and horsehair line, and a Wickham's Fancy.

After leaving Winchester, Skues spent a year in Jersey with his parents before moving back to London to begin his career as a lawyer with the firm of James Powell. In 1895, Skues became a partner in the firm of Powell, Skues and Graham Smith, a position he held until 1940.

Skues's chalk-stream career began in 1887 with a invitation from a client to fish the Abbots Barton fishery on the Itchen. There he met and befriended Francis Francis, angling author (A Book on Angling) and angling editor for The Field, and started studying and writing about trout fishing in English chalk streams. His first article in the angling press appeared the following year under his pseudonym "Val Conson".