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Author: Scott-Waring, John

Biography:

SCOTT-WARING, John (1747-1819: ODNB)

An Epistle from Oberea and A Second Epistle are attributed to Scott-Waring by HL and library catalogues follow suit. The books are satires on Joseph Banks, the scientist and traveller, and verge on the obscene. It is possible but not very likely that Scott-Waring was the author. Westminster Magazine stated that “the Public voice” assigned them to Christopher Anstey (q.v.) but there is no proof. Scott-Waring was born in Shrewsbury, one of four sons of Jonathan Scott and his wife Mary Sandford. In 1766 he travelled to Bombay where he was a cadet for the East India Company. In 1767 he joined the Bengal army. By 1778, the time of his first meeting with Warren Hastings, he had risen to the rank of captain; he later became major. The meeting with Hastings was a turning point in his life and in 1781 he returned to England as his agent. Although he worked zealously on Hastings’s behalf, he proved rather inept both within and without parliament (he was MP first for West Looe, Cornwall, and later for Stockbridge, Hampshire). With Hastings’s acquittal in 1795, he ceased being active politically. In 1798 he added Waring to his name when he inherited an estate in Cheshire from a cousin. He was thrice married: to Elizabeth Blackrie in 1767, to Mary Hughes in 1796, and to Harriet Pye Esten in 1812. He had children with each of his wives. He died 5 May 1819 in London. His various political pamphlets and letters were published as by Major Scott and, later, Major Scott Waring. The anonymous 1785 Heroic Epistle to Major Scott is addressed to him. (ODNB 16 Nov. 2021; WorldCat; Westminster Magazine Dec. 1773)

 

Other Names:

  • Major John Scott
  • Major Scott Waring
 

Books written (6):

2nd edn. London: Almon, 1774