Francis Skinner

In 2011, an extensive archive came to light, consisting of 170,000 words of handwriting, text and mathematics. This apparently had mostly been dictated by Wittgenstein to Skinner, with annotations by both. The archive includes a long-lost, so-called Pink Book. Wittgenstein had posted them to a friend of Skinner days after his death.

Sidney George Francis Guy Skinner (1912 – 11 October 1941) was a friend, collaborator, and lover of the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Skinner died from polio, following an air raid in Cambridge in October 1941, having been neglected during the rush to treat victims of the bombing.

In 1934, the two made plans to emigrate to the Soviet Union and become manual labourers, but Wittgenstein visited the country briefly and realised the plan was not feasible; the Soviet Union might have allowed Wittgenstein to immigrate as a teacher, but not as a manual labourer.

During the academic year 1934–1935, Wittgenstein dictated to Skinner and Alice Ambrose the text of the Brown Book.

Skinner graduated with a first class degree in mathematics from Cambridge in 1933 and was awarded a postgraduate fellowship. He used this fellowship to work with Wittgenstein on a book on philosophy and mathematics (unpublished, possibly the "Pink Book" archive discovered in 2011). While it has been assumed that Skinner was merely a student taking dictation, the discovery of the original archives indicates that Skinner played a significant role in shaping and editing the work.

In 1930, Skinner met Wittgenstein, fell under his influence and "became utterly, uncritically, and almost obsessively devoted to Wittgenstein.". Their relationship was seen by others as being characterized by Skinner's eagerness to please Wittgenstein and conform to his opinions.

In the late 1930s, Wittgenstein grew increasingly distant from Skinner.

He was born in 1912 in Kensington, London, England, and educated at St Paul's School, London. Both his father and mother were academically distinguished: his father Sidney Skinner, was a Cambridge chemist and later Director of the South-western Polytechnic Institute, and his mother, Marion Field Michaelis, a mathematician at Harvard College Observatory.