William E Skillend

William E. Skillend (Korean: 윌리암 스킬렌드) (April 26, 1926 – February 21, 2010) was the first British academic specializing in the Korean language, and the first professor of Korean at SOAS.

Skillend was born in Liverpool and went on to study at Christ's College Cambridge, where he took a first in Japanese. After completing his Doctorate there, he became one of the generation of British orientalists who started as military translators (in his case at Bletchly Park).

He established the Association for Korean Studies in Europe (AKSE) in 1977.