William E. Skillend (26 April 1926 – 21 February 2010) was the first British academic specializing in the

Korean language Korean ( South Korean: , ''hangugeo''; North Korean: , ''chosŏnmal'') is the native language for about 80 million people, mostly of Korean descent. It is the official and national language of both North Korea and South Korea (geographic ...

, and the first professor of Korean at the

School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury a ...

(SOAS) in London.Times Obituary
/ref> Skillend was born in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

and went on to study Japanese at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he received a first-class degree and later completed a PhD. He became one of the generation of British

orientalists In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...

who started as military translators, in his case at

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes ( Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years followin ...

.William E. Skillend
'The Early Days, 1947-55'
in

Richard Bowring Richard John Bowring (born 6 February 1947) is an English academic serving as Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Cambridge and an Honorary Fellow of Downing College. In 2013, Bowring was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun 3rd Cla ...

(ed.), ''Fifty years of Japanese at Cambridge, 1948–98: A Chronicle with Reminiscences'' (Cambridge: Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge, 1998), pp. 8-15. Skillend was responsible for establishing the Association for Korean Studies in Europe (AKSE) in 1977.

Works

* William E. Skillend, ''Kodae Sosol: A Survey of Korean Traditional Style Popular Novels'' (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1968).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Skillend, William 1926 births 2010 deaths Academics of SOAS University of London Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge British orientalists Koreanists