Hugh Scott was born on 16 September 1885, at Lee, London, S.E., the son of William Edward Scott (1855-1920), of the London Stock Exchange and grandson of George Robert Scott (1817-1888), also of the London Stock Exchange. His mother was Edith Truscott, daughter of James Chapman Amos Truscott, M.Inst.C.E., and of Jane Wyatt Truscott. On his father’s side he was a direct descendant of the family of Scott of Scot’s-Hall in East Kent, a family which has been traced back for some centuries. Hugh Scott’s own family circumstances were at first modest but his father prospered and in 1896 moved to London. The parents were cultivated, fond of art, music and literature and lovers of travel but had no particular interest in any branch of natural history. Scott’s development as a naturalist cannot in fact be attributed to any family or ancestral influence. Like many boys, he began to collect butterflies—at about the age of seven—but while this kind of thing is usually a passing phase, like stamp collecting, it became, with Hugh Scott, his life-interest. However, his special passion, the love of natural history expeditions, was probably fostered by the frequent vacation journeys on which he accompanied his parents, from about the age of ten. Throughout his life Hugh Scott was handicapped by rather vague but no less real ill-health. This caused his removal, first from a preparatory school in Blackheath and then from Westminster School to which he had won a classical entrance Exhibition, but left after little more than a term. Nevertheless, under a private tutor, he passed the London Matriculation 1st class, in 1903 and the Cambridge ‘Little-Go’, the same summer. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1903, passed the first M.B. examination in 1904, won an Exhibition at Trinity in March 1906 and a First Class in the Natural Sciences Tripos, Part I, in June 1906.
The Scientific and Cultural Journey to Ovarian Rejuvenation: Background, Barriers, and Beyond the Biological Clock
