Sir Ernest Scott (21 June 1867 – 6 December 1939) was an

Australian historian The history of Australia is the story of the land and peoples of the continent of Australia. People first arrived on the Australian mainland by sea from Maritime Southeast Asia between 50,000 and 65,000 years ago, and penetrated to all part ...

and professor of history at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

from 1913 to 1936.

Early life

Scott was born in

Northampton Northampton () is a market town and civil parish in the East Midlands of England, on the River Nene, north-west of London and south-east of Birmingham. The county town of Northamptonshire, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England; ...

, England, on 21 June 1867, the son of Hannah Scott, a housekeeper; William Scott, civil engineer, was cited as his father when Ernest married. Ernest Scott was educated at St Katherine's Church of England School, Northampton and worked as a journalist on the London '' Globe''. On 7 May 1892 Scott married Mabel Emily Besant, daughter of Rev. Frank and

Annie Besant Annie Besant ( Wood; 1 October 1847 – 20 September 1933) was a British socialist, theosophist, freemason, women's rights activist, educationist, writer, orator, political party member and philanthropist. Regarded as a champion of human f ...

, the theosophist; they had one child, Muriel (1893–1924).

Career

In 1892 Scott (who began to call himself Besant-Scott at his wife's insistence) migrated to Australia, where he joined the staff of ''The Herald'' newspaper, edited the ''Austral Theosophist'' and lectured. Around 1896 Mabel converted to

Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

and became estranged from her husband, although they continued nominal cohabitation. Scott subsequently abandoned theosophy. Mabel returned to England in 1909, taking their daughter Muriel, but Scott did not sue for divorce until 1915. On 25 May in Melbourne, Scott married to Bendigo-born Emily Illinden Fortuna, sister of Edward Dyason. They had no children. From 1895 to 1901 Scott was a member of the Victorian

Hansard ''Hansard'' is the traditional name of the transcripts of parliamentary debates in Britain and many Commonwealth countries. It is named after Thomas Curson Hansard (1776–1833), a London printer and publisher, who was the first official print ...

staff, and from 1901 to 1914 was on the Commonwealth Hansard staff. After the publication of ''Terre Napoléon: A History of French Explorations and Projects in Australia'' (London, 1910), ''Laperouse'' (Sydney, 1912) and '' The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders'' (Sydney, 1914), Scott's reputation as a historian was established. In 1913 Scott was appointed Professor of History at the

, even though Scott had never attended a university. He had, however, shown ability both in research and as a lecturer, and the experiment proved a great success. Future professors of history who passed through Scott's school included (Sir) Keith Hancock, Fred Alexander,

Marnie Bassett Flora Marjorie (''Marnie'') Bassett (30 June 1889 – 3 February 1980) was an Australian historian, biographer and travel writer. Her writing focussed on women's and family history, with particular attention to people from Australia. Earl ...

, (Sir) Stephen Henry Roberts,

Manning Clark Charles Manning Hope Clark, (3 March 1915 – 23 May 1991) was an Australian historian and the author of the best-known general history of Australia, his six-volume ''A History of Australia'', published between 1962 and 1987. He has been descri ...

, N. D. Harper and A. G. B. Fisher of

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River / ...

. Scott's other works included ''A Short History of Australia'' (1916), ''Men and Thought in Modern History'' (1916), ''History and Historical Problems'' (1925), ''Australian Discovery'' (1929) and in 1933 appeared volume VII of ''The Cambridge History of the British Empire'', edited and partly written by Scott. ''Australia During the War'', being volume XI of '' The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918'', appeared in 1936. Scott retired in 1936, was knighted in June 1939 and died of a coronary thrombosis on 6 December 1939.

Personality and personal life

Scott was above medium height, bluff and open in manner. He was much interested in music, the drama and poetry, in which he had read widely. He had a sound knowledge of his own subject, and was an industrious and fast worker. He did much to bring Australian history to life. He did not always carry out his urgent advice to his students that they should "verify their references" and consequently errors will be found in some of his books. Generally, however, they are in comparatively unessential things and were caused by trusting to a usually reliable memory. As a rule his work is excellent and was always based on conscientious research. As a teacher he was interesting, vivid and inspiring, exacting hard work from his students and insisting on the value of original documents, while also pointing out that even they cannot be blindly accepted. He had a human interest in his students and no trouble was too great for him if it would help them in their work.

Legacy

Scott's widow Emily Scott donated money to the University of Melbourne to establish the Ernest Scott Prize for History, which is awarded annually for the most distinguished contribution to the history of Australia or New Zealand.

The Scott lineage of historians

Lines of historians in Australia can be traced to Scott at the

. Among his undergraduate students were future historians

and W. K. Hancock. Unlike Hancock, Clark spent his career in Australia and went on to teach a third generation of historians which included Geoffrey Blainey, Geoffrey Serle, Ken Inglis, and Michael Roe. This generation would "transform the writing of Australian history over the following five decades."Rae Frances and Bruce Scates, Obituary of Ken Inglis, Australian Historical Studies, 2018, Vol. 43, No. 3, 410-412. A fourth generation was taught by Blainey, including

Janet McCalman Janet Susan McCalman, (born 5 December 1948) is an Australian social historian, population researcher and author at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. McCalman won the Ernest Scott Prize in 1984 and 20 ...

and

Stuart Macintyre Stuart Forbes Macintyre (21 April 1947 – 22 November 2021) was an Australian historian, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne from 1999 to 2008. He was voted one of Australia's most influential historians. Early lif ...

. Inglis taught

Bill Gammage William Leonard Gammage (born 1942) is an Australian academic historian, adjunct professor and senior research fellow at the Humanities Research Centre of the Australian National University (ANU). Gammage was born in Orange, New South Wales, w ...

and

Hank Nelson Hyland Neil "Hank" Nelson (21 October 1937 – 17 February 2012) was one of Australia's foremost historians of the Pacific, particularly Papua New Guinea. His interest in the region began in 1966 when he took a teaching position at the Adminis ...

. Among Macintyre's former undergraduate students was Frank Bongiorno.

References

External links

Pictures of Ernest Scott
at Picture Australia * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Scott, Ernest 1867 births 1939 deaths 20th-century Australian historians Australian biographers Academics from Melbourne Historians of Australia Knights Bachelor People from Northampton Academic staff of the University of Melbourne 19th-century British journalists 19th-century Australian journalists 19th-century Australian male writers Australian male journalists British emigrants to Australia