Sir Robert Heatlie Scott, (20 September 1905 – 26 February 1982) was a British civil servant who became

Permanent Secretary A permanent secretary (also known as a principal secretary) is the most senior Civil Service (United Kingdom), civil servant of a department or Ministry (government department), ministry charged with running the department or ministry's day-to-day ...

of the

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...

Career

Educated at Inverness Academy,

Queen's Royal College Queen's Royal College ( St.Clair, Trinidad), referred to for short as QRC, or "The College" by alumni, is a secondary school in Trinidad and Tobago. Originally a boarding school and grammar school, the secular college is selective and noted for it ...

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

and

New College, Oxford New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as its feeder school, New College is one of the oldest colleges at th ...

, Scott was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

before joining the civil service in 1927.Robert Heatlie Scott at Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
/ref> In 1941, during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he sat on the Governor's War Council in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

. He was taken prisoner by the Japanese after Singapore was captured and beaten and tortured. After the war Scott became Assistant Under-Secretary of State at the

Foreign Office Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * Unit ...

and then Minister at the British Embassy in

Washington D. C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

before returning to Singapore as Commissioner-General in 1955. He went on to be Commandant of the Imperial Defence College in 1960 and then

of the

in 1961. In retirement Scott was Lord Lieutenant of Peeblesshire and then Lord Lieutenant of Tweeddale. He lived at Lyne Station House in

Peebleshire Peeblesshire ( gd, Siorrachd nam Pùballan), the County of Peebles or Tweeddale is a historic county of Scotland. Its county town is Peebles, and it borders Midlothian to the north, Selkirkshire to the east, Dumfriesshire to the south, and Lana ...

.The Peerage.com
/ref>

Family

In 1933 Scott married Rosamond Aeliz Dewar-Durie; they had a son and a daughter.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scott, Robert 1905 births 1982 deaths Alumni of New College, Oxford Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Alumni of Queen's Royal College, Trinidad British expatriates in Trinidad and Tobago