Jimmy Skeggs, a leading light in the Southern League and chairman of Millwall, advised the promoters behind the proposed Exeter City AFC company in the run-up to the club’s successful bid to join the Southern League in 1908. He was also a member of the Football Association's commission of enquiry into the affairs of Exeter City in 1912.

After rumours began to circulate in February 1908, that a group of local business people and other influential figures in the city were planning to form a professional football club in Exeter, the matter soon became public and a series of meetings was reported in the local press. At one held on 14 March 1908 it was announced that Mr J B Skeggs, chair of Southern League Millwall, had agreed to advise the group and would be travelling to Exeter the following week. Duly meeting the 'promoters' on the eve of the amateur Exeter City's game against the Royal Marines, Mr Skeggs offered enthusiastic support for the scheme in advance of Sid Thomas and Captain F J Harvey travelling to a Southern League meeting in London three days later.

At the London meeting Mr Skeggs successfully moved a motion that three clubs - Tottenham Hotspur, Queen's Park Rangers and Bradford Park Avenue (newly elected in 1907) - should be forced to resign from the league on account of their applications to join the Football League. Although Queen's Park Rangers were to later reconsider their position, this started to pave the way for Exeter City and Mr Skeggs was soon to return to Exeter to attend a public meeting (along with the Southern League's secretary and representatives from Plymouth Argyle and the Great Western Railway) at the Royal Public Rooms on 7 April 1908 ahead of the Grecians' eventual election to the Southern League the following month. To what extent Mr Skeggs, who was met with a "hearty reception" at the public meeting, helped arrange for City's first fixture to be played at Millwall on 2 September 1908 is not known.

Within four years Jimmy Skeggs was back in Exeter as a member of the Football Association's committee of enquiry investigating alleged payment of illegal bonuses. Meeting at the Great Western Hotel in July 1912, the commission found no evidence of such payments but did find irregularities in the club's bookkeeping which led to a fine, the suspension of a director and the censure of other individuals.

Whether or not Jimmy Skeggs steered his colleagues towards treating the Grecians' with a degree of leniency is open to conjecture but, within eighteen months, he was again showing goodwill towards City on the day of the FA Cup tie against Aston Villa in January 1914. Shortly before kick-off a telegram was received from Mr Skeggs reading: "Millwall did, so can Millwall's child." (this being a reference to Millwall Athletic's cup victory over Villa in 1899/1900). Reports of the time suggested that the Londoner still considered himself as some kind of "father" to the professionalised Exeter City.

James Buteux Skeggs, the son of a dock porter, was born in Shoreditch in 1860. Becoming a solicitor's general clerk, he later worked as a vestry clerk before taking on various roles with the Borough of Poplar which culminated in his appointment as town clerk. Awarded an OBE in 1918, he was a major shareholder in the original Millwall Rovers club and, in addition to chairing the successor club, was also a member of the FA Council and a keen advocate for the establishment of the so-called Footballers' Battalion (the 17th Middlesex) in 1914.

Mr Skeggs died in 1922 in Blackheath, South East London at the age of sixty-one. A block of flats on the Isle of Dogs, on the site of one of Millwall’s former grounds prior to the move to The Den in 1910, was named for him. His death came at the outset of the notable Poplar Rates Rebellion of the 1920s led by George Lansbury.

(additional information from the London Remembers website; picture credit Isle of Dogs - Past Life, Past Lives)