in 1880 a silver medal from the Society of Arts for a paper entitled ‘Suggestions for dealing with the Sewerage of London,’ and the Telford premium for a paper he contributed in the same year, in conjunction with Mr. G. R. Redgrave, to the Institution of Civil Engineers, on the ‘Manufacture and Testing of Portland Cement.’ He had prepared the plans for the completion of the South Kensington Museum, when, in 1882, the treasury, in a fit of economy, abolished his appointment as secretary of the Great Exhibition commissioners. This abrupt termination of his connection with the museum and anxiety for the future of his numerous family helped to break down his health. He designed the buildings for the Fisheries Exhibition, but was too ill to attend the opening. He died at his residence, Silverdale, Sydenham, on 16 April 1883, and was buried at Highgate. Scott's life was devoted to the public service and the advancement of scientific knowledge, but he failed to secure for himself any benefit from his inventions.
Scott married, on 19 June, 1851, at Woolwich, Ellen Selina, youngest daughter of Major-general Bowes of the East India Company's service. She survived him with fifteen children.
Scott contributed to the ‘Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects’ (1857 and 1872) and to the ‘Professional Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers’ (new ser. vols. vi, vii, x, xi, xii, xvii, xx) papers chiefly dealing with his discovery of his new cement and the construction of the Albert Hall.
[War Office Records; Royal Engineers' Records; memoir by Canon Daniel Cooke in the Royal Engineers' Journal, 1883; Sir Henry Coles's Fifty Years of Public Work, 2 vols. 1884.]
SCOTT, HEW (1791–1872), annalist of the Scottish church, son of Robert Scott, excise officer, was born at Haddington on 5 Feb. 1791. He attended Edinburgh University, but graduated M.A. at Aberdeen. For a time he found employment in collating the old ecclesiastical manuscripts in the Register House, Edinburgh, where he was known as ‘the peripatetic index.’ Licensed to preach by the Haddington presbytery, he was ordained to a Canadian mission in 1829; but David Laing the antiquary persuaded him to remain in Scotland. He became assistant minister successively at Garvald, Ladykirk, Cockpen, and Temple; and in 1839 was preferred to the charge of West Anstruther, Fifeshire, where he died on 12 July 1872. He received the degree of D.D. from St. Andrews University.
The labour of Scott's life was the ‘Fasti Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ,’ 6 vols., Edinburgh, 1866–71. This work gives a notice, more or less complete, of every minister who has held office in the church of Scotland from 1560 to 1839. On the score of exhaustiveness and accuracy it is unique in ecclesiastical biography. Scott personally visited nearly eight hundred parishes in search of material. He wrote the whole of the ‘Fasti’ on letter-backs, and used turned envelopes for his correspondence. With a stipend of less than 200l. a year he left about 9,000l., and bore part of the costs of publishing the ‘Fasti.’ He was an eccentric character, and curious stories are recorded of his miserly habits.
[Gourlay's Anstruther, 1888; Conolly's Eminent Men of Fife, 1866; local information.]
SCOTT, Sir JAMES (fl. 1579–1606), politician, was the grandson of Sir William Scott or Scot (d. 1532) [q. v.], and eldest son of Sir William Scott of Balwearie and Strathmiglo, by his wife Janet, daughter of Lindsay of Dowhill; he was served heir to his father in 1579. In December 1583 his name appears at a band of caution for the self-banishment of William Douglas of Lochleven (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iii. 615). On 4 March 1587–8 he was called to answer before the privy council, along with the turbulent Francis, earl of Bothwell, and others, for permitting certain border pledges to whom they had become bound to escape (ib. iv. 258). At the coronation of the queen on 17 May 1590 he was dubbed a knight, but his enjoyment of the royal favour was of short duration. A catholic by conviction, and fond of fighting and adventure, he gave active and unconcealed assistance both to the Earl of Bothwell and to the catholic earls of Angus, Erroll, and Huntly. He seconded Bothwell in his attempt to seize the king at Falkland Palace on 28 June 1592 (Moysie, Memoirs, p. 95), and having, for failing to answer concerning the ‘late treasonable fact,’ been, on 6 June, denounced a rebel (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iv. 765), he on 10 Nov. obtained caution to answer when required, and not to repair within ten miles of the king's residence without license (ib. v. 21). At the convention of estates held at Linlithgow on 31 Oct. 1593 he was appointed one of the sham commission for the trial of the catholic earls (ib. p. 103), and, as was to be expected, favoured the act of abolition passed in their favour. It was probably through him that Bothwell arranged his interview with the three catholic earls at the kirk of Menmuir in Angus in 1594, when a band was subscribed
