Family and Education

b. 22 Oct. 1793, 1st s. of Sir Joseph Scott†, 1st bt., of Great Barr and Margaret, da. and coh. of Edward Whitby of Shut End, Staffs. educ. Westminster 1808-10; Oriel, Oxf. 1812. m. (1) 14 Feb. 1815, Catherine Juliana (d. 4 Aug. 1848), da. and coh. of Sir Hugh Bateman, 1st bt., of Hartington Hall, Derbys., 3s. (1 d.v.p.); (2) 8 Nov. 1848, Lydia, da. of Rev. Thomas Gisborne of Yoxall Lodge, Staffs., wid. of Rev. Edmund Robinson of Thorpe Green, Yorks. s.p., suc. fa. as 2nd bt. 17 June 1828. d. 27 Dec. 1851.

Offices Held

Sheriff, Staffs. 1847-8.

Biography

Scott’s father, Whig Member for Worcester, 1802-6, was the largest landowner in Great Barr, where the family had settled in the reign of Edward I, and was created a baronet by the Grenville ministry, 30 Apr. 1806. Scott was tutored by the Rev. Thomas Harwood, presumably at Lichfield Grammar School, where he was headmaster, 1791-1813, before attending Westminster and Oxford. He succeeded his father in 1828 and by the 1840s had added industrial limeworks in the neighbouring township of Aldridge to the family’s estates.1 At the general election of 1830 he agreed to contest Lichfield at the request of the independents, whose initial invitation he had declined, in an ‘attempt to compel the relinquishment of one seat’ by the dominant interest of Lord Anson. After three days of polling he withdrew, having secured a pledge from his opponent George Vernon that he would retire at the next dissolution in his favour.2 At the 1831 general election Vernon duly stood down and Scott came in unopposed, claiming to be ‘perfectly free and unfettered’ and declaring that ‘the reform bill before the country should have his support’. ‘No question’, however, was ‘ever asked him, what his political opinions were: though a general idea seemed to prevail that he was a moderate and liberal, not going to the extreme lengths of any party, and therefore not likely to offend any’.3

Scott, who like his father was mostly a silent Member, voted for the second reading of the reintroduced reform bill, 6 July, and gave general support to its details, although he was in the minority for giving two Members to Stoke, 4 Aug. 1831. He presented a Lichfield petition for extending the residence requirement to ‘all persons claiming a right to be registered as voters for any city or borough, by reason of owning or occupying any freehold or tenement’, 13 July, and next day an individual’s petition for the disfranchisement of burgage tenants and the transfer of urban freehold and annuitant voters to the counties. He joined Brooks’s, 17 Aug., sponsored by Sir John Wrottesley* and Sir Ronald Ferguson*, but next day divided in favour of Lord Chandos’s amendment to enfranchise £50 tenants-at-will. He voted for the reform bill’s passage, 21 Sept., the second reading of the Scottish bill, 23 Sept., and Lord Ebrington’s confidence motion, 10 Oct. He divided with government on the Dublin election controversy, 23 Aug. He voted for the second reading of the revised reform bill, 17 Dec. 1831, and again gave steady support to its details. On 24 Jan. 1832 he presented and endorsed a petition from Lichfield praying that ‘the provision of the last reform bill, with respect to enforcing the residence of the voters, might be followed up’. He gave notice that day that he would move for the words ‘a knight or knights of the shire’ to be replaced by ‘any Member’ in clause 18, which set out occupational requirements for freeholders, but failed to do so. He divided for the bill’s third reading, 22 Mar. He voted against ministers on the Russian-Dutch loan, 26 Jan., but with them on the issue, 12, 16, 20 July (as a pair). He was in the minority for reduction of the Irish registrar of deeds’s salary, 9 Apr. He voted for the address calling on the king to appoint only ministers who would carry the reform bill unimpaired, 10 May, the second reading of the Irish bill, 25 May, and against a Conservative amendment to the Scottish bill, 1 June. He divided for a tax on Irish absentee landowners, 19 June, but against Hume’s proposal to disqualify the recorder of Dublin from sitting in Parliament, 24 July 1832.

Scott was returned for Lichfield at the 1832 general election and sat as a Whig until the dissolution of 1837, when he retired. He canvassed again in 1841, but declined ‘before the weight of the Anson influence’.4 He was appointed sheriff of Staffordshire in 1847. He died at his seat in December 1851. Under the terms of his will, dated 5 June 1850, his second wife received a £600 life annuity. The family estates passed to his eldest son and successor in the title Sir Francis Edward Scott (1824-63), who had inherited his maternal grandfather’s baronetcy at his birth. Scott’s second son and namesake Edward Dolman (1826-1905), to whom the baronetcy eventually passed in 1884, received property in Bryanston Square, Marylebone and an annuity of £1,000.5

Ref Volumes: 1820-1832

Author: Philip Salmon

Notes

• 1. Lichfield Mercury, 30 July 1830; VCH Staffs. xvii. 191.
• 2. Staffs. Advertiser, 17, 24, 31 July; Lichfield Mercury, 16, 30 July 1830.
• 3. Lichfield Mercury, 6 May 1831; Bodl. GA Staffs. b.6, election posters.
• 4. Dod’s Parl. Companion (1833), 157; J.C. Wedgwood, Staffs. Parl. Hist. iii. 107.
• 5. Gent. Mag. (1852), i. 298; PROB 11/2148/159; IR26/1945/114.