SCOTT, Hugh

Educated at Cambridge where he studied Classics in which he obtained a first in 1906. His obituaries mention that he came under the influence of David Sharp at this time and he was certainly sufficiently interested in entomology to become a member of the Percy Sladen Trust expedition which investigated the terrestrial fauna of the Seychelles in 1908. On his return he succeeded Sharp as Curator of the Cambridge Insect collections a post which he held until 1928 when he left Cambridge to take up the position of entomologist to the Department of Agriculture, Baghdad. Whilst in the Near East he made a trip to Kurdistan but became ill and had to return to England. Upon recovery in 1930 he joined the staff of the NHM where he remained as Assistant Keeper of the Entomology Department until his retirement in 1948. Whilst at the NHM he made further expeditions to Ethiopia (1926-27, 1948-49, 1952-53) and to Aden and the Yemen (1937-38). Scott’s principal taxonomic interests were in the Coleoptera and the Nycteribiidae (Diptera), and as an ecologist his principal works were on the giant lobelias and tree Senecios of East African mountains, and on the fauna of the leaf axils of Bromeliaceae. Scott published various notes on the British entomological fauna in EMM from 1907 but with few exceptions (eg. ‘Hoplia philanthus near Cambridge and Homaloplia ruricola in Oxfordshire’, 50, 1914, pp.221-22) most were not concerned with Coleoptera. His major taxonomic writings were those concerned with the findings of his foreign trips and in particular the Seychelles reports of which he edited all 83 parts. His other publications included a book on his Southern Arabian expedition, In the High Yemen (1942, 1947), and Official Handbooks for Western Arabia and the Red Sea for Naval Intelligence (1942-46). He was on the editorial board of the EMM from 1923. Presumably this is the Scott whose specimens in the Mason Collection at Bolton are marked with the numbers 900, 901, 903 and 904 (but see John Scott below). There are also Scott specimens in the general collection at Cambridge. The types of his foreign collections went to the NHM except a first selection of the Pselaphidae from the Seychelles which went through Achille Rafray’s collection to the Paris Museum. Letters to Scott from Oliver Janson dated 1917 are amongst the Crotch material at Cambridge, and a ms notebook listing localities of insects found in the Seychelles between July 1908 and March 1909 by himself, and in Aldabra, Assumption and Cosmoledo Islands between August 1908 and February 1909 by J.C.F Fryer, is in the NHM (Harvey et. al.(1996) pp.187-88). Pedersen (2002) records that there is correspondence and other material including a collection of letters and postcards dated 1914-1937 in the RESL. The library also has David Sharp’s scrapbook which was presented by Scott. FRESL (Council, Vice-President 1926, Hon Fellow from 1954), FLS (Council), FRGS (Council), FRS (1941). Gilbert (1977) p.345 lists 6 obituaries including EMM., 96, 1960, p.105 with a portrait. (MD 11/04)