Hugh Skinner was born in 1807 near the hamlet of Marwood in Devon (county), England. He had a successful business in Barnstaple and married Catherine Folland (b. 5 May 1831) of Pilton (a short distance from Barnstaple) in 1831. Hugh and Catherine had five or six children who survived into adulthood. In 1855 while many of the children were still young, Hugh and Catherine moved across the Atlantic to re-settle in Guelph, Ontario. Hugh opened a furniture factory in partnership with two brothers from the Burr family. (Two very fine chairs and a table from the Burr & Skinner Furniture Co. are on display in the Wellington County Museum a few miles outside of Guelph.)