Scott family, baronets, of Rotherfield Park

Thomas Scott, brickmaker, of Fulham died in 1749 and his fourth son by Anne Whittle of Hackney, William Scott of Hammersmith and Grosvenor Place, died in 1785, leaving issue William, James and George Scott. It was James Scott (1776-1855), the second son, who purchased Rotherfield Park in East Tisted (Hampshire) in 1808 from the Marquess of Winchester. He was succeeded at Rotherfield Park by his son James Winter Scott (1799-1873), who was succeeded in turn by his sons George Arthur Jervoise Scott (d1895) and Archibald Edward Scott (d1924). The latter’s son Jervoise Bolitho Scott (1892-1965) was created a baronet in 1962.

The Scott family made its fortune from brickmaking and housebuilding, benefitting from the expansion of west London in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, such as the developments at Bedford Square and Grosvenor Square. Property was acquired in this period at Fulham, Hackney, Isleworth and Islington in Middlesex and at Northfleet in Kent while a town house in Grafton Street was also acquired. The Islington property amounted at its peak to a notable urban estate and an important interest was retained there until 1973. The Hampshire estate, acquired in 1808 and centred on East Tisted, Colemore, Empshott, Newton Valence and Ropley, still remains substantial. In 1883 the family’s estates, exclusive of the London property, consisted of 3162 acres in Hampshire and Kent worth £2933 a year.