Author: SCOTT, Francis
Biography:
SCOTT, Francis (1806-84: ancestry.co.uk)
He was the youngest son of Hugh Scott, 6th Lord Polwarth, and his wife Harriet de Brühl and was born at Mertoun House, Berwickshire, Scotland, on 31 Jan. 1806. He was educated at Edlingham school, Northumberland, and admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, on 18 Apr. 1823 (BA 1827, MA 1832). He was granted a degree by Oxford university “ad eundem” on 10 June 1834. He was admitted to the Middle Temple, London, on 21 July 1827 and called to the bar on 15 June 1832. It was in 1831 while he was at the Middle Temple that he wrote two political pamphlets, View of the Representation of Scotland and Dissection of the Scottish Reform Bill. He sent copies of the pamphlets and of the two works listed in this bibliography to Walter Scott (q.v.) to whom Iolande is dedicated; these works were all published anonymously. (Some library catalogues attribute The Reform Deformed to Lord John Russell who is a character in the play; there is clear evidence that Francis Scott was the author.) Scott married Julia Frances Laura Boultbee (1814-68) in Bramley, Surrey, on 22 July 1835; they had at least one child, a daughter. Scott was MP for Roxburghshire 1841-47 and for Berwickshire 1847-59. He served as the parliamentary agent for New South Wales, Australia, from 1844 to 1851. Census records from 1851 and 1861 show the family living at Sendhurst Grange in Send near Guildford, Surrey. Francis Scott died at home on 9 Mar. 1884 and was buried in the churchyard of St. Mary, Send, on 13 Mar. He left an estate of under £6332. (ancestry.co.uk 25 Sept. 2024; ACAD; Alumni Oxonienses; Millgate; Abbotsford Cata) SR