# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Scott, William (1813-1872)

​SCOTT, WILLIAM (1813–1872), divine, born in London on 2 May 1813, was the second son of Thomas Scott, merchant, of Clement's Lane and Newington, Surrey. In October 1827 he was entered at Merchant ​Taylors' School, and on 14 June 1831 he matriculated at Queen's College, Oxford, as Michel exhibitioner. He was Michel scholar in 1834–8, and graduated B.A. in 1835 and M.A. in 1839. Ordained deacon in 1836 and priest in 1837, he held three curacies, the last of which was under William Dodsworth [q. v.] at Christ Church, Albany Street, London. In 1839 he was made perpetual curate of Christ Church, Hoxton, where he remained till 1860, and was widely known as 'Scott of Hoxton.' In 1860 he was appointed by Lord-chancellor Campbell vicar of St. Olave's, Jewry, with St. Martin Pomeroy.
Scott was an active member of the high-church party. When in 1841 its organ, the 'Christian Remembrancer,' was set on foot, he was made co-editor with Francis Garden. In 1844, when it became a quarterly, James Bowling Mozley [q. v.] for a short time succeeded Garden, but during a large part of the career of the paper, which ended in 1868, Scott was sole editor. He felt deeply the secession of Newman, who regarded Scott with respect (see a letter to Keble, 29 April 1842, J. H. Newman's Letters, ed. Mozley, ii. 396). Though personally unacquainted with him, Scott wrote of Newman to J. B. Mozley that he had 'lived upon him, made him my better and other nature.' Scott took a leading part in the agitation following the Gorham judgment. His 'Letter to the Rev. Daniel Wilson,' 1850, a reply to Wilson's bitter attack on the Tractarians, passed through four editions. In 1846 he joined Pusey and his associates in their efforts to prevent the ordination at St. Paul's of Samuel Gobat, the Lutheran bishop-elect of Jerusalem. Ten years later he was, with Pusey, Keble, and others, one of the eighteen clergy who signed the protest against Archbishop Sumner's condemnation of Archdeacon Denison. Scott's advice was much sought by Henry Phillpotts [q. v.], bishop of Exeter, and by Walter Kerr Hamilton [q. v.], bishop of Salisbury. Dean Church was his intimate friend. He was among the founders of the 'Saturday Review,' to which he constantly contributed, and was long a zealous member of Mr. Gladstone's election committees at Oxford, voting for him at his last candidature in 1868.
In London Scott's influence was especially great. He was one of the prime movers in the formation in 1848 of the London Union on Church Matters, and from 1859 onwards was chairman of the committee of the Ecclesiological Society. He was one of the chief advisers of Milman and Mansel in the work of restoration at St. Paul's Cathedral, acting for some time as honorary secretary of the restoration committee. In 1858 Scott was elected president of Sion College, then in process of reform, and next year published a continuation of the 'Account' of that foundation by John Russell (1787–1863).
Scott died on 11 Jan. 1872 of spinal disease, and was buried in Highgate cemetery. He married Margaret Beloe, granddaughter of William Beloe [q. v.], and had three sons and two daughters.
In 1841 he edited, with additions and illustrations, Laurence's 'Lay Baptism invalid;' and in 1847, for the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology, the works of Archbishop Laud in seven volumes. Several of his sermons are in A. Watson's 'Collection.' His 'Plain Words for Plain People,' 1844, censured the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge for garbling theological works.
[C. J. Robinson's Register of Merchant Taylors' School; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886; Crockford's Clerical Directory; Guardian, 17 Jan. 1872, reproduced in Church Times, 19 Jan.; Times, 15 Jan. 1872; J. B. Mozley's Letters, ed. Anne Mozley, 1885, pp. 155, 168, 169, 321, 322; Church's Oxford Movement, p. 352, and Life and Letters, p. 145; Liddon's Life of Pusey, iii. 77, 442; Works in Brit. Mus. Libr.; Men of the Reign and Notes and Queries, 4th ser. ix. 66, give wrong date of birth.]
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